Muhammad Deif, commander of Hamas’s military wing, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip last month, the IDF confirmed. The army said it had received recent intelligence confirming his death.
Deif was targeted in an attack on a compound belonging to Rafa’a Salameh, commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, in the Khan Younis area on July 13. The next day, the army confirmed Salameh’s death, but had no definitive information on Deif.
The IDF considered highly accurate intelligence that Deif had arrived at the compound owned by Salameh and that the two were together in the targeted building with numerous heavy munitions. Israeli fighter jets had patrolled the compound for half a day prior to the attack, after the IDF received initial indications that Deif had joined Salameh. At any given time, two jets were in the air over the site.
Once military intelligence confirmed Deif’s arrival at the compound, the order was given for the jets to strike, which was carried out within minutes. Deif, 58, commander of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades for more than two decades, has long been one of Israel’s most wanted terrorist figures. He was one of the masterminds of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the deadliest in the country’s history, in which some 1,200 people were killed and some 251 were taken hostage to Gaza.
