Tue 4-February-2025

Mohammed Deif: The shadow leader ascends as a martyr

Friday 31-January-2025

GAZA, (PIC)

After a journey of jihad and resistance lasting several decades, leader Mohammed Deif has become a martyr in the Al-Aqsa Flood battle that he led and planned with his brothers in the military council, leaving behind a rich history and significant marks in the Palestinian military scene.

In a recorded message on Thursday evening, Abu Obeida announced: “With all the signs of pride and dignity, and after completing all necessary measures and addressing all security precautions imposed by the circumstances of battle and the battlefield, and after conducting the necessary verification and taking all relevant measures, the Al-Qassam Brigades announces to our great people, to our nation, and to all supporters of freedom and resistance worldwide, the martyrdom of a group of great fighters and heroic leaders from the General Military Council of the Al-Qassam Brigades, led by the martyr of the nation, commander Mohammed Deif, the Chief of Staff of the Al-Qassam Brigades.”

The founding generation
The name Mohammed Deif has been associated with Palestinian resistance since the 1990s; he was one of the first members of the Al-Qassam Brigades and became a symbol of heroism and concealment. Although he was rarely seen, his influence was strongly felt in the Palestinian military landscape.

For over three decades, Deif led the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, surviving repeated assassination attempts that made him akin to a ghost, haunting the Israeli occupation and reshaping the equations of conflict in every confrontation. This culminated in the Al-Aqsa Flood battle, which humiliated the occupation and proved its strategic failure, despite the brutality and extermination it perpetrated after the glorious day of crossing when the Gaza Brigade of the occupation army fell at the hands of Al-Qassam heroes.

Birth and early path
Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as “Mohammed Deif,” was born in 1965 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza. He came from a family that was displaced from the occupied Palestinian territories in 1948 and settled in the Khan Yunis refugee camp.

His family consists of fifteen members, and his father worked in pillow manufacturing and upholstery. He received his primary, intermediate, and secondary education in the schools of Khan Yunis camp, like many other Palestinian refugees who were uprooted from their homes and lands.

Growing up in a resistance environment, he was deeply affected by the brutal reality of occupation and the harsh conditions of displacement from a young age. This motivated him to join the Islamic movement while studying at the Islamic University in Gaza, where he studied sciences and was active in the Islamic Bloc.

Joining Hamas
He joined the Hamas Movement at a young age and was an active member, participating in the events of the First Intifada that erupted at the end of 1987. He was arrested as part of the first crackdown by the occupation forces on the Movement in the summer of 1989, accused of joining the armed wing of the Movement, which was established by Sheikh Salah Shehada (who was martyred in the summer of 2002). Initially named “Hamas Mujahideen,” it later became known as the “Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.” He spent a year and a half in prison.

In 1991, the Israeli authorities released Deif from prison, after which he joined the early groups of the al-Qassam Brigades. Most of its members, such as Yasser Al-Namrouti, Jamil Wadi, Hisham Amer, Abdul Rahman Hamdan, and Mohammed Ashour were martyred in addition to the captive Hassan Salama.

After participating in numerous resistance operations and engagements with the occupation forces, Deif became a wanted man. He refused to surrender, leading to one of the longest manhunts in history, taking place in a small, confined geographical area. However, during this time, he mastered the art of concealment, managing to avoid capture—alive or dead.

Deif’s role became prominent after the assassination of Imad Aqel, who was known for a series of resistance operations in November 1993. He was entrusted with leading the al-Qassam Brigades.

During this period, Deif successfully planned and executed several high-profile operations. He also managed to reach the occupied West Bank, forming various resistance cells there and participating in several operations in Al-Khalil before returning to Gaza.

He played a significant role in planning the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Nachshon Waxman in 1994 in the town of Bir Nabala near Jerusalem, who was killed along with his captors after their location was discovered. Deif appeared carrying a rifle and Waxman’s identity card, having escaped from the West Bank to Gaza, where he was masked with a red keffiyeh.

As the pressure mounted on those wanted by the occupation in the Gaza Strip, Deif refused a request to leave Gaza for fear of being arrested or martyred, especially given the policy of bombing homes believed to harbor wanted individuals. He famously stated, “We were created to resist the occupation; either we win or we become martyrs,” despite several of his colleagues agreeing to leave the Strip.

He also managed to secure the arrival of engineer Yahya Ayyash, an explosives expert from the West Bank, to Gaza after he was cornered there, to benefit from his expertise in making explosives. Ayyash was later assassinated by a booby-trapped phone in early 1996.

Deif was behind the operations of revenge for Ayyash by sending Hassan Salama to the West Bank to oversee them, resulting in the deaths of approximately sixty Israelis in these resistance operations.

Deif completely vanished from sight after carrying out the revenge operations for Ayyash in the spring of 1996 when the Palestinian Authority (PA) launched a manhunt targeting him as part of a major crackdown on the Hamas Movement, arresting hundreds of its leaders and members at the time.

The PA later managed to arrest Deif under the pretext of wanting to protect him from Israeli bombardment, allowing investigators from the American intelligence agency known as the CIA to interrogate him.

Later, Deif managed to regain his freedom from the Gaza Preventive Security Prison and returned to reorganize the al-Qassam Brigades after their weapons and ammunition had been confiscated. He began preparing to carry out more operations until the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000.

When the occupation authorities released Sheikh Salah Shehada in 2001, Deif handed over the leadership of the military apparatus to him, as Shehada entrusted Deif with responsibility for the military industries of the Brigades, which he developed and excelled in.

A year after the Intifada began, Deif survived his first assassination attempt while he was with Adnan al-Ghul (who was martyred on October 22, 2004), an explosives expert in the al-Qassam Brigades, and his son Bilal. They were targeted by an Israeli aircraft, and although Bilal was martyred in the attack, Deif miraculously survived.

Leadership of the armed wing
After Sheikh Shehada was martyred in the summer of 2002, the Movement’s leadership entrusted Deif with the responsibility of leading its armed wing. On September 26, 2002, just three months after Shehada’s martyrdom, Deif survived a second assassination attempt when an Israeli airstrike targeted the vehicle he was in; his companions were martyred, and he sustained severe injuries.

Palestinian sources reported that Deif faced a third assassination attempt during an airstrike on a house in the summer of 2006, during the Israeli military operation following the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and it was said that he sustained serious injuries, although this was not confirmed by the al-Qassam Brigades.

Since taking command, Deif has planned numerous resistance operations against the Israeli occupation and has been a key figure in developing Hamas’s military capabilities, including the manufacture of local rockets and the creation of a military tunnel network that became crucial in the battles of Gaza.

Leadership of the Al-Aqsa Flood
On October 7, 2023, Commander Deif appeared to announce the launch of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle, which he oversaw and participated in until he was martyred.

One of the main reasons for the Flood was the behavior of the Israeli occupation and its plans to decisively resolve the conflict and impose sovereignty over Jerusalem and its holy sites, paving the way for spatial and temporal division in the Aqsa Mosque and the construction of the alleged temple.

Failed assassinations and unbreakable will
Although Israel has executed numerous assassination attempts against Mohammed Deif, he has survived them all, even if some caused severe injuries. The most dangerous attempt occurred in 2014 during the Israeli aggression on Gaza, when occupation planes targeted his home, killing his wife and son. However, Deif emerged from the rubble to continue leading the battle.

A leader in the shadows, present in battle
Mohammed Deif does not appear in the media and is known only through a few audio recordings, yet he is powerfully present in every confrontation with the occupation, regarded as the mastermind behind military tactics that have changed the nature of the conflict between the resistance and the occupation.

During the “Sword of Jerusalem” battle in 2021, Deif was behind the strategy to target Tel Aviv with rockets in response to Israeli assaults in Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque, establishing a new deterrence equation and showcasing the evolution of Palestinian resistance.

Israel’s number one enemy
For decades, Israel has placed Mohammed Deif at the top of its wanted list, considering him the most dangerous Palestinian figure threatening its security. Despite all intelligence efforts, the occupation has been unable to reach him, turning him into a legend and a nightmare for the occupation. He departed as he wished—martyred in the greatest battle he planned and led, a battle that demonstrated the fragility of the occupation and its vulnerability to defeat.

Commander Mohammed Deif leaves as a martyr, but his rich history and enduring legacy inspire the free to pursue the path of freedom, amidst a Palestinian consensus that he is one of the symbols of resilience who created new equations in the confrontation with the occupation. They believe that a leader who is martyred leaves behind a thousand leaders.

Short link:

Copied