Israel confirms that the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, was killed in an airstrike in July.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Israeli army announced that “Following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike.”
Hamas did not immediately respond.
Israel targeted Mohammed Deif on July 13 in a strike on the outskirts of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
But the Israeli military has since been trying to determine whether he was dead. More than 90 other people, including displaced civilians in nearby tents, were killed in the strike, according to Gaza health officials.
The Israeli confirmation comes a day after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran in a strike attributed to Israel.
Since the October 7 attack, Israel has been committed to eliminating Hamas’s top leaders. Yahya Sinwar remains elusive so far.
Israel says Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif were the masterminds of the October 7 attack, in which Hamas militants rampaged through communities in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostage.
Mohammed Deif was one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, in the 1990s, and led the unit for decades. Under his command, the al-Qassam Brigades carried out dozens of suicide bombings against Israelis on buses and in cafes, and built up an arsenal of rockets capable of striking deep into Israel.
