Israel-Gaza War: Who Is Mohammed Deif? The ‘Shadowy’ Hamas Leader Behind Israel Attack

Mohammed Deif has never appeared in public, and very few of his images are available in public domain. One of these images was used when his voice recording was aired on TV ahead of Saturday's attack.

Representational image of a Palestinian resident raising the national flag as Hamas supporters wave green Islamic flags during a demonstration in Gaza City in July 2023.

Source : Getty

"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," Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas' military wing, said in a recorded message broadcast on Hamas’ TV channel Saturday as the militant outfit fired rockets into Israel territory from the Gaza Strip, besides breaching the border to send its men into Israel and take back hostages. Hamas called the attack “Operation Al Aqsa Flood”, sending across a message that they were avenging the May 2021 Israeli raids on Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site for Muslims after Mecca and Medina. The Hamas attack, the biggest in years, and Israel’s aggressive retaliation since have claimed thousands of lives on both sides. 

According to a Reuters report, while 1,200 people have died and more than 2,700 sustained injuries in Israel, as many as 1,055 people died and more than 5,000 were wounded in Gaza after Israel declared war on Hamas and launched airstrikes on the region in retaliation.

According to reports, the Hamas attack was masterminded by Deif.

Deif said the operation was in response to the “16-year blockade of Gaza, the Israeli occupation and a series of recent incidents that have brought Israeli-Palestinian tensions to a fever pitch”, the Associated Press reported. 

Deif apparently started planning the operation right after the 2021 Al Aqsa raid, Reuters reported, quoting a “source close to Hamas”.

"It was triggered by scenes and footage of Israel storming Al Aqsa mosque during Ramadan, beating worshippers, attacking them, dragging elderly and young men out of the mosque," the source said, adding: "All this fuelled and ignited the anger."

The report also quoted an Israeli security source to confirm that Deif was directly involved in the planning and execution of Saturday’s attack.

The US Department of State designated him as a terrorist way back in 2015. Very little, however, is known about Deif, often described as an "elusive, “secretive” or “shadowy” figure.

Who Is Mohammed Deif? 

He has never appeared in public, and very few of his images are available in public domain, according to the Reuters report. One of these images, that of his shadow, was used when his voice recording was broadcast on TV ahead of the attack. 

One-eyed Mohammed Deif is said to be a survivor of at least seven assassination attempts by Israel, the most recent one in 2021. He has spent decades underground, and no one knows where he lives, though it is suspected that he might be staying somewhere in the Gaza enclave that has a maze of tunnels underneath, the report said. 

According to a Financial Times report, Deif was born Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri in Gaza, at the Khan Younis refugee camp, during the 1960s. The region was then under the control of Egypt (1948-1967). Israel won the West Bank and Gaza from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving it under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas established its control on the region after a 2007 coup, and later won an election there to govern it politically.

The Reuters report said Deif studied physics, chemistry and biology at the Islamic University in Gaza and earned a degree in science. He was reportedly interested the arts, headed the university's entertainment committee, and even performed comedies on stage.

However, life took a different turn for him and he joined Hamas shortly after the outfit came into being. Deif is said to have been the head of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, since 2002.

In the audiotape, he could be heard speaking calmly how Hamas had warned Israel many times.

"Every day the occupation storms our villages, towns and cities in the West Bank and raid houses, kill, injure, destroy and detain. At the same time, it confiscates thousands of acres of our land, uproots our people from their houses to build settlements while its criminal siege continues on Gaza," he was quoted as saying.

One of the houses hit by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza belonged to Deif's father, sources told Reuters, adding that the Hamas leader’s brother and two other family members were among those killed in the enclave.

Deif As Hamas Leader

According to a BBC report, Deif survived four assassination attempts during the 2000s. He escaped every time, albeit with injuries, and some of them were serious. Quoting Israeli media, the BBC report from May 2021 said he lost an eye and limbs after an Israeli airstrike on a Hamas member’s home in 2006.

"People thought he would never function again as a leader, as a military planner," BBC quoted a former IDF intelligence chief as saying. "But he recovered as well as he could. If you lose an eye, you lose an eye."

According to the FT report mentioned above, he had lost an arm and a leg too and was left in a wheelchair.  

Among his enemies, the BBC report said, Deif came to be known as "the cat with nine lives".

The failed bids on his life only enhanced his reputation as he rose through the ranks within Hamas, which came into being in the late 1980s when the First Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, against Israel began. The uprising was against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel had captured after the 1967 Israeli-Arab War, also known as the Six-Day War. 

Deif joined Hamas around the same time. He was in his 20s around the time, according to the FT report. Quoting a Hamas source, the Reuters report cited above said Deif was arrested by Israel in 1989 and he had spent about 16 months in detention.

The FT report said Deif studied under Yahya Ayyash, who was a bombmaker nicknamed ‘Engineer’ and was killed by Israel in a 1996 operation. To avenge Ayyash’s assassination, Deif masterminded a series of bus bombings in Israel. 

According to the BBC, it was in July 2002 that Deif took over as the Gaza commander of the military wing of Hamas. He succeeded Salah Shehadeh, the founder of the wing killed in an Israeli missile strike, an report in The New York Times said. 

Deif has been atop Israel’s “most wanted” list for decades. 

In 2014, Israeli warplanes bombed a house in Gaza City reportedly seeking to assassinate Deif, who managed to escape like before, though it was not known initially if he actually survived the attack that left his wife, their 7-month-old son, and 3-year-old daughter dead.

Reporting about the incident, NYT quoted an Israeli journalist, Ronen Bergman, as saying how Deif had emerged as a “legend” for Palestinians. “Deif is the only prime military figure in Hamas to have survived so long. The fact that he was able to escape multiple assassination attempts and recover from severe injuries has built him the image and prestige of a bulletproof legend,” said Bergman, who specialised in security affairs. 

The report also said Deif was the architect who built the Qassam Brigades into the formidable force that it became.

He rarely speaks. It was after a considerable gap that Palestinians heard his voice when the audiotape was telecast Saturday. The Reuters report said Deif doesn't use modern digital technology, and not even smart phones. In his videos, he appears masked, or one can just see a shadow of him.

"He is the man in the shadows," the report quoted its Hamas source as saying.