Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it can now confirmed that eliminated Hamas military leader.
Daif Mohammad was the most wanted Palestinian military leader by the state of Israel.
On July 14, Mohammed Deif, the military commander of Hamas in Gaza, has escaped another Israeli attempt to kill him and is doing “fine”, a senior official of the Palestinian group says.
The Hamas official’s statement stated that Deif was targeted in a massive Israeli air strike on the besieged territory’s southern area that killed at least 90 people and wounded 300 others.
“Commander Mohammed Deif is well and directly overseeing” the operations of the Hamas military wing, the official told AFP news agency.
Israel said bombing of the al-Mawasi camp, a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza, was aimed at killing Deif, who has long topped Israel’s most wanted list.
In response to the Hamas claim, Israel’s Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi said in a televised statement on Sunday that Hamas is “concealing the results” of its air strike on a compound where Deif was allegedly hiding.
“It is still too soon to sum up the results of the attack, those which Hamas is trying to hide,” Halevi said.
Deif was one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, in the 1990s and has led the force for more than 20 years. He is also said to be a key figure who planned suicide bombings leading to the deaths of dozens of Israelis.
Israel identified him and Hamas’s Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, as the chief architects of the October 7 attack that killed at least 1,139 people in southern Israel and triggered its war on Gaza.
On the morning of October 7, Hamas had issued a rare voice recording of Deif announcing the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, signalling the attack was payback for Israeli raids at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
Deif, 58, rarely speaks or appears in public. So when Hamas’s TV channel announced he was to speak on October 7, Palestinians in Gaza knew something significant was afoot.
Speaking in a calm voice in the recording, Deif said Hamas had repeatedly warned Israel to stop its crimes against Palestinians, to release the prisoners, and to halt its expropriation of Palestinian land.
“Today the rage of Al-Aqsa, the rage of our people and nation is exploding. Our mujahedeen [fighters], today is your day to make this criminal understand that his time has ended,” Deif said.
