The military leader of the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas, Mohammed Deif, was killed in an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) missile strike two and a half weeks ago, an Israeli military spokesperson announced on Thursday.
The operation, conducted jointly by the IDF and the Shin Bet internal security service, involved an air force targeted missile strike on 13 July. Deif,
who orchestrated the 7 October terrorist attack against Israel and served as a military commander during the ongoing Gaza war,
was killed in Khan Yunis. He had been leading the Islamist fighters alongside Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza.
The announcement follows weeks of gathering evidence regarding Deif’s death, with a decisive piece of evidence obtained in the past hours confirming the success of the assassination.
‘Mohammed Deif, a master assassin and the “Bin Laden of Gaza,” was killed on 13 July 2024. This represents a significant step towards dismantling Hamas as a military and governmental entity and achieving the war’s objectives,’ Yoav Galant, the Israeli Defence Minister, wrote on X.
Israel’s first attempt to eliminate Deif occurred twenty-two years ago, when he was severely injured but survived. He subsequently survived a total of seven assassination attempts. In July, Israeli fighter jets circled the area where intelligence reports indicated Deif might appear, deploying powerful missiles that left him no chance of escape.
Deif was among the first to join Hamas and was arrested by Israeli authorities in 1989 for his involvement in the terrorist organization’s military wing, resulting in a 16-month imprisonment. While in prison, he established the al-Qassam Brigades to capture Israeli soldiers. He also planned Hamas’ tunnel network towards Israeli territories and orchestrated rocket attacks on Israeli communities adjacent to Gaza.
In 2002, Deif survived an assassination attempt in which he lost an eye, a leg, and an arm. Israel made another attempt to kill him during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, which resulted in the death of his wife and son, though Deif himself survived the targeted missile strike.
As we also reported, on 31 July, Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas was also killed in a targeted strike in Tehran, only a few hours after an Israeli fighter jet killed the head of Hezbollah’s operations centre in the heart of Beirut, Lebanon.
Musa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, stated that ‘the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh is a cowardly act that will not go unanswered.’ In a statement, Hamas indicated that Haniyeh was killed in a ‘treacherous Zionist raid’ at his residence in Tehran. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced that they would ‘investigate the circumstances of Haniyeh’s death and later announce the results of the investigation.’
On the same day, German Green MEP Hannah Neumann called attention to the fact that
during the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Enrique Mora, the Spanish EU official coordinating nuclear negotiations with Tehran, sat alongside Ismail Haniyeh
and other Palestinian terrorist leaders. Mora listened silently as the entire Iranian parliament called for the destruction of Israel. He also posed for a group photo with several terrorists, standing right behind Haniyeh. Mora is a close associate of Josep Borrell, the EU’s high-ranking official for foreign affairs with an anti-Israel stance.
As Hungarian Conservative reported, these events are escalating at a rapid pace, and might cause Hamas to back out of any and all negotiations, thus pushing the Middle East to the brink of a full-scale war.
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