The Israeli army said Thursday that it had confirmed the death of Hamas’s military commander, Mohammed Deif, in Gaza — a major milestone in the conflict as two of the group’s most senior leaders were declared dead in as many days.
On Tuesday, it said in a statement that an “intelligence check” had confirmed the militant’s death. “Mohammed Deif was eliminated,” the IDF wrote on X.
The announcement came less than 24 hours after Hamas confirmed the assassination of its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. Although Israel declined to comment on the operation — in keeping with its posture of “strategic ambiguity” following previous high-profile strikes and assassinations around the region — it was widely seen as responsible.
A Hamas spokesperson, Izzat al-Rishq, said in a statement Thursday that “confirming or denying” the death of any of the group’s leaders “is a matter for the leadership” of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. “It is not possible to confirm any of the published news,” he said.
Analysts described the killings as a significant blow to Hamas, but also one that it could recover from. Taken together, they said, the most significant short-term impact was likely to be the jeopardizing of negotiations to end the war, which were reported to have reached a critical juncture in the days before Haniyeh’s assassination. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under significant pressure from the United States, his main political and military ally, to find a negotiated solution to the conflict.
The Gaza Health Ministry says that more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military operations in pursuit of Deif and the other architects of the attacks on Oct. 7 that sparked war. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.
Deif was believed by Israel to have been a key figure in planning the assault, in which Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took more than 250 hostage. As the founder of the Qassam Brigades, and its leader for more than two decades, Deif had long been on Israel’s kill list and survived at least seven assassination attempts, Israeli media reported.
He was targeted alongside Salameh, leader of Hamas forces in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, according to a joint statement July 14 by the Israeli military and the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service. Salameh was one of Deif’s “closest associates” and also played a central role in planning the Oct. 7 assault, according to the statement.
Deif, whose given name was Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, was a shadowy figure, rarely photographed or seen in public, but he helped oversee the construction of Gaza’s extensive tunnel network and was thought to direct day-to-day combat operations for Hamas.
Political analysts described the deaths of Deif and Haniyeh as a significant blow to the movement, but cautioned that earlier assassinations of key figures did not substantially weaken the group. Israel killed a series of Hamas political and military figures in 2003. By the end of the following year, it had assassinated the group’s founder and Haniyeh’s mentor, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and then-leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.
“History has repeatedly demonstrated that while Israel is very effective in terms of assassinating senior Palestinian political figures, this has tended to have at best limited impact on [Hamas’s] abilities, on its development,” said Mouin Rabbani, a nonresident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies and co-editor of Jadaliyya, of Haniyeh’s assassination.
“I would not equate killing leaders with eradicating a movement. Those are two very different things, and Israel has proven quite successful with respect to the former but not at all successful with respect to the latter.”
In May, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, announced he was applying for arrest warrants for Deif and Haniyeh, as well as Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yehiya Sinwar, who is thought to be running operations from the enclave’s extensive tunnel network. He is seeking to charge all three with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Netanyahu, whose arrest warrant the prosecutor also sought, has pledged to keep fighting until Hamas is eliminated as a military and political force, a goal his own generals have conceded is unrealistic.
“One way or another, we will reach every senior member of Hamas,” Netanyahu said after the July 13 strikes, adding that no hostages were in the area at the time. It was unclear how that conclusion had been reached.
Loveluck reported from Jerusalem and Rubin from Tel Aviv. Miriam Berger in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
