JERUSALEM: Israel’s army said on Thursday that Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif was killed in an air strike last month in the southern Gaza Strip.

Deif is believed to have been one of the masterminds of Hamas’ Oct 7 raid that triggered the Israeli invasion in the Palestinian enclave. The announcement came a day after Hamas and Iran said the Palestinian movement’s chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran.

“Mohammed Deif, the Osama bin Laden of Gaza, was eliminated” on July 13, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said. This is a “significant milestone in the process of dismantling Hamas” in Gaza, Gallant added. The army said fighter jets had struck Khan Yunis on July 13 and “following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike”.

Hamas neither confirmed nor denied the killing of Deif, but one official, Ezzat Rashaq, said any word on deaths of its leaders was its responsibility alone. “Unless either of them (the Hamas political and military leadership) announces it, no news published in the media or by any other parties can be confirmed,” Rashaq said.

He was killed along with one of his top commanders, Rafa Salama, the military said. Deif became head of Hamas’s armed wing, Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, in 2002. He was among Israel’s most wanted man for nearly three decades and on a US list of “international terrorists” since 2015.

Deif rose through the group’s ranks over 30 years, developing its network of tunnels and its bomb-making expertise. Deif, whose real name is Mohammed Diab al Masri, was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in 1965. The word Deif means “visitor” or “guest” and some say he chose it because he was always on the move with Israeli hunters on his trail, never spending more than one night in the same place.

In videos, Deif has appeared masked or shown in a silhouette, while rare photographs have circulated of one of Israel’s most wanted men. In January, Israel released a picture of Deif showing him with one eye missing, without specifying when it was taken.

In 2014, Israel launched an air strike on Gaza, killing Deif’s wife and a seven-month-old son.

It was Deif who announced the start of the Hamas raid — operation “Al Aqsa Flood” — in an audio message on October 7. Deif became involved in Hamas in the 1980s when he was a student at the Gaza Islamic University.

He is said to have played a key role in the huge network of tunnels built beneath Gaza. In May, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested a warrant for his arrest — alongside with Yahya Sinwar, the chief of Hamas in Gaza who is still being hunted by Israel — for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2024