As thousands of people in Tehran paid their last respects to Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, who was killed the day before, the Israeli army announced the death of another key leader of the Islamist movement. This is Mohamed Deif, the elusive head of Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezedin Al Qassam Brigades, who it had already tried to finish off a dozen times since 2001. Hamas, for the moment, is keeping silent. If confirmed, it would be the highest-ranking casualty for Hamas in ten months of war, behind only Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahia Sinwar. Israel also killed Marwan Issa in March, in another bombing that left dozens of civilians dead. Number Threeof the group.
Deif was the target of an Israeli airstrike on the 13th, in a humanitarian camp near the Gazan city of Khan Yunis, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are living in poverty. The fighter-bombers killed more than 90 civilians, but it was not clear whether Deif was also killed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before the nation that same day to boast of his “elimination,” but admitted that it could not be taken for granted, while Hamas hinted that he had survived. This Thursday, 20 days later, the Armed Forces and the Shin Bet (the intelligence services in Israel and Palestine) confirmed his death, after “evaluating” the information obtained by their intelligence services. They also confirmed that of Rafa Salameh, commander of the Khan Yunis Brigade, with whom he was hiding.
Deif, who has been in charge of the Brigades since 2002, had the aura of a mythical character for Palestinians, always moving in the shadows. Like his face (unknown and of which Israel has released a photo, with signs of previous attempts to assassinate him on his face) or his own surname, which is actually Masri. Deif means “guest” in Arabic. He received it as a nickname, precisely because he always went from house to house, to avoid being located.
The last time he escaped death was in 2021. In a previous attempt, in 2014, Israel killed his wife and one of his children by launching a missile at their home. He always managed to escape (Israel has wrongly reported him dead in the past), even seriously injured, from airstrikes on cars he was driving or safe houses he was visiting.
He had been in Israel’s crosshairs since the 1990s, which attributed to him the planning of numerous attacks, including several suicide attacks on buses in the 1990s and during the Second Intifada (2000-2005). He was already included on its most wanted list in 1995. But, above all, he is considered the mind that planned for years, together with Sinwar, the surprise attack on October 7, 2023 in Israel, which left almost 1,200 dead (mainly civilians), more than 250 hostages (about half still in Gaza, dozens of them dead) and triggered the invasion of Gaza, which now has close to 40,000 corpses. Deif was, in fact, the one who claimed it in a voice recording in which he gave it a name: Al Aqsa Flood. From that day on, he became, even more so, Israel’s number two enemy within Hamas.
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“Big step”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described the assassination as “a major step on the path to eradicating Hamas as a military and governmental organization and to achieving the goals of the war.” Aware that a vast majority of society welcomes the elimination of the leaders of enemy armed groups, the minister accompanied the message with a photo in which he crossed out Deif’s name from the Hamas organizational chart with a black marker.
The announcement comes as the Middle East is at its most dangerous point since the war in Gaza began 10 months ago, prompting seven airlines (Lufthansa, United Airlines, British Airways, Delta, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Air India) to cancel flights to Israel or Lebanon as of Thursday.
The reason is two so-called “targeted assassinations.” The first was on Tuesday in Beirut, of Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s number two, for which Israel boasts and which the Lebanese militia admitted a day later when they found his body in the rubble. His murder was Israel’s retaliation for Hezbollah’s deadliest attack in the low-intensity war it is waging with Israel. In an apparent mistake, which it does not acknowledge, it killed 12 children and teenagers in a Druze town in the Golan Heights, Syrian territory in the hands of Israel.
The second, on Wednesday, was Haniya, who was paid his final farewell on Thursday by a crowd in the courtyard of Tehran University, in the presence of the main government and military authorities. Among them was the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, who delivered the funeral oration for Haniya and for the other fatal victim of the attack: his bodyguard, Wasim Abu Shaaban.
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