The announcement of Deif’s killing comes after the Wednesday killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which heightened fears of a wider Center East battle and a significant blow to cease-fire negotiations to finish the battle in Gaza. Hamas and Iran blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s assassination, however Israeli officers have declined to touch upon the operation.
It additionally comes after the Tuesday killing of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli strike outdoors Beirut. The Israeli army held Shukr liable for a strike within the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 youngsters at a soccer subject. Hezbollah denied finishing up that assault.
Deif was believed by Israel to have been among the many key architects of the assaults on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 folks in southern Israel and took greater than 250 hostage. Because the founding father of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and its chief for greater than 20 years, Deif had lengthy been on Israel’s kill record and survived a minimum of seven assassination makes an attempt, Israeli media reported.
He was focused alongside Rafa Salameh, chief of Hamas forces within the southern Gaza metropolis of Khan Younis, in line with a joint assertion July 14 by the Israeli army and the Shin Guess, Israel’s inside safety service. Salameh was one among Deif’s “closest associates” and likewise performed a central function in planning the Oct. 7 assault, in line with the assertion.
Hamas denied yesterday that Deif had been killed. “You may have failed,” Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy head of Hamas in Gaza, advised Al Jazeera, addressing Netanyahu. “Mohammad Deif is listening to you now and mocking your false, empty statements.”
Deif was a shadowy determine, hardly ever photographed or seen in public, however he helped oversee the development of Gaza’s intensive tunnel community and was thought to direct day-to-day fight operations for Hamas.
In Could, the chief prosecutor of the Worldwide Prison Court docket, Karim Khan, introduced he was making use of for an arrest warrant for Deif, together with different militant leaders, for battle crimes and crimes towards humanity.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to maintain combating till Hamas is eradicated as a army and political pressure, a purpose his personal generals have conceded is unrealistic.
“A method or one other, we’ll attain each senior member of Hamas,” Netanyahu stated after the July 13 strikes, including that no hostages have been within the space on the time.
Greater than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed within the battle, in accordance the Gaza Well being Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants however says nearly all of the lifeless are girls and kids.
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