Muhammad Deif, the shady leader of the Hamas military wing in Gaza and one of the main architects on October 7, 2023, an attack on Israel that lit the war, Hamas confirmed on Thursday that he was dead. He was in the late 50s.
Mr. Deif, whose real name was Muhammad al-Masri, was one of the oldest leaders of Hamas in Gaza, and for decades he was one of Israel’s most demanding militants. He survived a series of attempts to the Israeli assassination before the one who killed him and some Palestinians laid him as a symbol of Hamas’s resistance – though enigmatically.
While Israel announced in August that he had been killed, Abu Promid, a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing, only in the recorded video acknowledged his death. Both Israel and the United States considered him the terrorist blood of his citizens on his hands.
Mr. Deif was killed on July 13, Israel said, when his forces bombed the combination on the outskirts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to the Israeli army – which made him one of the oldest commanders of Hamas who killed themselves in Gaza in the war.
Mr. Promoida did not say when or where Mr. Deif was killed.
The strike killed by Mr. Deif also killed at least 90 Palestinians on the ground, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced, hitting the Al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza, part of the humanitarian zone named Israel. The Ministry of Health does not distinguish civilians and fighters in their mortals.
The zone was large expanses filled with hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians, many who live in improvised shelters, according to the United Nations. Israel said Hamas works from a targeted compound within the zone.
Mr. Deif was the “heartbeat” of Hamas’s military wing and one of his most important military strategists, said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli intelligence officer specializing in Palestinian affairs.
There were several photos of Mr. Deifa in circulation, and they rarely saw him or heard him spent decades in hiding. His adopted name, “Deif”, means “guest” in Arabic, widely understood as a creature of frequency with which he changed places to avoid death or capture.
He led the Qassama Brigade, the Hamas military wing, and is responsible for transforming what was once a diffuse network of armed cells into a great combat force with tens of thousands in its ranks.
“He is a legendary figure in Hamas,” said Ibrahim Madhoun, a Palestinian analyst close to Hamas, before the death of Mr. Deifa confirmed the militant group.
Born in 1965. In a poor Palestinian family, Mr. Deif grew up In the refugee camp of Khan Younis In southern Gazi, not far from Yahya Sinwar, a top leader of Hamas was killed in October. In the 1980s, he studied at the Islamic University of Gaza, focusing on science and joining Hamas around the time he was founded in the late 1980s.
Quickly pierced through the ranks, developing a reputation as Main bomber and orchestration numerous attacks on Israel, including a series of deadly Bus attack This killed dozens of people and drove the peace process in the mid-1990s.
Shortly after Hamas was founded, Israel closed Mr. Deifa for 16 months, starting at May 1989.
Also held Mr. Deif by Palestinian authorities For a short time starting in 2000. At that time, the Palestinian administration was a control body with a limited autonomy over parts of the West Coast and Gaza, and was dominated by Fatah, a Palestinian fraction that suffered Hamas.
When Founder of the Hamas Military Wing, Salah ShehadehHe was killed by Israeli Air attack in 2002, Mr. Deif took over the helm.
He Upgraded and expanded the production and imports of rockets and helped develop Hamas’s extensive network of tunnels under the gauze. He also commanded the so -called brigade shadow, which guarded the Israeli captives held by Hamas, and supervised the investment in new technologies like scouting drones for the Qassam Brigade, said Mr. Madhoun analyst.
It was believed that Mr. Deif lost his eye and gained other serious wounds in Israeli attempts to kill him, and often claimed the lives of othersincluding civilians. His ability to avoid death and often stated dedication to the destruction of Israel-has made her heroic status among some Palestinians.
Israeli and Palestinian analysts also attributed Mr. Deif to convert the Qassam Brigade in a slightly closer to the traditional army.
Mr. Deif was one of the main names on the most interesting to Israel’s list of decades and survived more than eight attempts to his life, according to the Israeli intelligence service. In 2015, the American State Department marked it as “a specially marked global terrorist.”
Was the target a 2002. The Israeli helicopter rocket strike in a busy street in the city of Gaza. 2014Israeli air attack killed one of his wives, a son for newborns and his three -year -old daughter. During the earlier war with Hamas in Gaza in 2021, the Israeli army said she had that tried to kill him several times.
That war – Following the Hamas after Israeli efforts to be thrown out of their homes in East Jerusalem and the Israeli Police of the Aqs Mosque in the Old Town of Jerusalem Jerusalem – was a turning point, Osama Hamdan, a Hamas leader with headquarters in Beirut, Later told the New York Times.
Over the next few years, Hamas improved his military skills.
For storage, there are about 15,000 rockets, together with mortar, Antitank’s missile and portable air defense systems, according to American and other Western analysts. And his leaders – Mr. Deif and Mr. Sinwar – withdrew the plans carefully for October 7, 2023, the attack on Israel, while Hamas fighters trained flying paraglideers and took hostages.
Once the attack was guided by Hamas on southern Israel, Mr. Deif posted a rare message. He stated that Hamas decided to start surgery so that “the enemy would realize that the time of their rampage without responsibility ended,” speaking in the recorded address.
“Righteous fighters, this is your day to bury this criminal enemy,” he said. “Time is over. Kill them wherever you find them. Remove this dirt from your country and your holy places. Fighting and angels fight with you.”
The attack on October 7, 2023, came to symbolize one of the greatest failures of intelligence in Israel’s history and the breakdown of his painting as an impenetrable military force. It was the most deadly day for Jews since the Holocaust. About 1,200 people were killed in rampage and about 250 hostages were taken.
The attack was lit by an devastating war in which tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed, including civilians. The 470 -day war displaced most of the people in Gaza, led to a crisis of hunger and spread of dangerous diseases, and many Palestinians asked if they had a future in the territory. He entered into force on January 19, but remains unclear how long he will hold.
Israel responded by going to war against Hamas in Gaza with Mr. Deif and other Hamas leaders on cross -haired hairs. In March, Israel Killed his upper deputy, Marwan Issa.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued an order for the arrest of Mr. Deifa, accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity regarding his role before, during and after the attack in October 2023.
This move was largely symbolic, with less likely that Mr. Deif would end up in custody. He spent decades underground in Hamas’ tunnels under Gaza, according to Israeli intelligence officials, and has not been seen publicly for years.
The court also issued orders for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoava Gallanth.
Recently Higher Israeli Defense officials told the army believed that Mr. Deif developed health problems This forced him to spend more time above the ground.
This is obvious where Israeli Air attack found him on July 13.
The Israeli unit supervises the identification of high -value goals, which was operated by military intelligence and Bet, spent weeks Villa observation Within the humanitarian zone of the southern gauze, which believed that another top -notch Lieutenant of Hamas – Rafa Salameh – remained in his family, according to the defense officials.
After learning that Mr. Deif seemed to be in a villa, the Israeli government approved a combat nozzle to drop at least five bombs with precise guided, according to officials.
That evening, Mr. Netanyahu said that the air attack was targeting Mr. Deifa, but that there was no “absolute clarity” over his fate.
“His hands are imbued with the blood of many Israelites,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “At the beginning of the campaign, I laid the rule: Hamas killers are dead people, from the first to the last.”
