Who is Mohammed Deif, mastermind behind Hamas’ attack in Israel?

The voice heard in the video, which was released shortly after the Saturday attack on Israel began, is believed to belong to Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing and the mastermind behind the incursion into Israel. The mass raid that took place on Saturday morning has resulted in a death toll of at least 600 people in Israel and more than 2,000 Israelis injured, escalating his decades-long campaign against the Jewish state to a new, brutal, and unpredictable level.

Simultaneously with Deif’s broadcasted message, hundreds of Hamas fighters breached the border fence between the blockaded Gaza Strip and Israeli territory. They spread across southern Israel under the cover of thousands of rockets.

In a matter of hours, Hamas managed to launch an unprecedented initial attack against Israel while also taking numerous hostages, estimated at around 100. Hamas’s social media channels released well-produced videos depicting its militants paragliding over the border and graphic images of dead soldiers and frightened Israeli civilians.

Despite being hunted by Israel for decades and surviving an airstrike 20 years ago that left him reportedly wheelchair-bound with the loss of an arm and a leg, Deif’s ability to outmaneuver Israel’s military while causing casualties among both soldiers and civilians has earned him the respect of Palestinian militants.

Who is Mohammed Deif?

Born as Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri in the 1960s in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza, Deif’s early life remains shrouded in mystery. Gaza was under Egyptian control at the time, and it is believed that either his uncle or father participated in armed Palestinian raids into the same area where Deif’s fighters infiltrated on Saturday.

Very little is known about Deif; even his name is a subject of mystery. Some who knew him in the 1980s claim he went by the name Deif, while others knew him by his birth name. Only one grainy photograph of him is available in the public domain.

Deif’s penchant for dramatic actions was developed during his time in an acting troupe at the Islamic University of Gaza, a hotbed of the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political Islam. By the late 1980s, when Hamas was born during the first intifada against Israel’s occupation, Deif was in his twenties.

Ghazi Hamad, now a Hamas politburo member, shared a prison cell with Deif when they were both jailed by the Israelis. Hamad recalled Deif as a kind individual and a patriot who used to create cartoons to make others laugh.

However, any trace of kindness seemed to fade as Hamas carried out suicide bombings that derailed the Oslo Accords. Deif is held responsible for numerous civilian deaths in suicide bombings, including a wave of attacks in 1996 that killed more than 50 civilians.

Deif is said to have learned from Yahya Ayyash, a bombmaker with the nickname “Engineer,” who was assassinated by Israel in 1996 using a mobile phone packed with explosives.

Deif rose through the ranks of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and played a role in developing the early rudimentary rockets. Hamas now possesses tens of thousands of rockets, with 3,500 fired on a single day during the Saturday attack.

According to the Israeli official familiar with Deif’s security file, he sought high-impact targets, such as settlers and soldiers in the occupied territories, buses in Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. He also oversaw rocket barrages that forced Israelis into bomb shelters at regular intervals.

Within Hamas, the official said, Deif opposed the complex dance in which Hamas occasionally agreed to halt fighting in exchange for Israel allowing additional funds into the blockaded Gaza Strip or granting more work permits for Gazans.