THE DAILY BEAST
Israel’s military announced Thursday that it had confirmed an airstrike in Gaza last month killed Mohammed Deif, Hamas’ top military commander.
Israel believes Deif and Hamas’ main leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, were the main architects of the Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 250 were kidnapped, sparking the ongoing war. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said fighter jets struck a compound in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on July 13, killing Deif.
The IDF also released footage of the airstrike that it described as the “moment of [Deif’s] elimination.”
The announcement of Deif’s death comes the day after Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader, was killed in an airstrike in Iran. Israel has not yet confirmed or denied responsibility for that attack in Tehran. It did, however, claim a separate airstrike in Beirut hours earlier that killed another of its enemies, Fuad Shukr, a top commander with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Hamas has not yet commented on the Israeli military announcement of Deif’s death, but the group previously claimed Deif survived the July airstrike. Israel’s military said at the time that another Hamas commander, Rafa Salama, died in the attack, while Gaza health officials said more than 90 others—including displaced civilians—were also killed.
In a post hailing Deif’s death, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described the Hamas military chief as “the ‘Osama Bin Laden of Gaza.’” “This is a significant milestone in the process of dismantling Hamas as a military and governing authority in Gaza, and in the achievement of the goals of this war,” Gallant wrote in a post on X.
Deif, a mysterious figure who has been at the top of Israel’s most-wanted list for decades, had previously survived seven Israeli assassination attempts, Reuters reports. He lost an eye and suffered serious leg wounds in one of those attempts, according to Hamas sources. Deif never appeared in public and his voice was only heard in rare audio recordings—including one broadcast as the Oct. 7 attacks began.
The recent rash of killings of Israel’s high-profile enemies come as negotiations for a ceasefire with Hamas continue against a backdrop of fears that a wider regional conflict could erupt. Iran has already vowed to retaliate against Israel over the killing of Haniyeh in Tehran.
Israel’s strike against Shukr in Lebanon, meanwhile, was itself a retaliation for a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that killed 12 children on a soccer field. Israel accused Hezbollah of being responsible for the attack, while the Lebanese group issued a rare denial of responsibility for the killings.
Almost 39,500 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign in the enclave almost 10 months ago, according to the Gaza health ministry.
