Who is Mohammed Deif, the Hamas military commander in Gaza?

Longtime leader of Qassam Brigades is among Israel’s most wanted and has been targeted by air strikes multiple times.

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 on Sunday followed reports 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 says its Saturday 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.

‘Folk hero’ from Khan Younis

Born in 1965 in the Khan Younis refugee camp, set up after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Mohammad Masri became known as Mohammed Deif after joining Hamas during the first Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in 1987.

Deif has a degree in sciences from the Islamic University in Gaza, where he studied physics, chemistry and biology. He headed the university’s entertainment committee and often performed on stage.

In 1989, during the height of the first Palestinian Intifada, Deif was arrested by Israel and released after 16 months in detention. He became the head of the Qassam Brigades in 2002 after Israel killed his predecessor and founding leader, Salah Shehadeh.

The several attempts on his life started after he succeeded Shehadeh.

Deif means “visitor” or “guest” in Arabic, and some say that is because the Hamas military commander is always on the move with Israeli hunters on his trail.

According to reports, Deif lost an eye and sustained serious injuries in one leg in one of Israel’s assassination attempts. His survival while running Hamas’s armed wing turned him into a “folk hero” among Palestinians.

Rising up the Hamas ranks over 30 years, Deif is believed to have developed the group’s network of tunnels and its bomb-making expertise.

In August 2014, Deif’s wife and seven-month-old son were killed in an Israeli air strike that targeted a house in Gaza where the family was staying.

In May, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor said he had requested arrest warrants for Deif, Sinwar and another Hamas figure over the October 7 attack. Warrants were also issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over Israel’s response that so far has killed at least 38,584 people in what rights groups describe as an ongoing genocide.