Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s “military wing,” despite being injured in multiple Israeli assassination attempts, can walk and has use of his hands.
Though Israeli intelligence agencies believed for years that Deif was paraplegic, the Israel Defense Forces uncovered recent videos in the Gaza Strip of the terrorist mastermind walking, though with a slight limp, Maariv reported on Wednesday.
The IDF has pursued Deif for two decades. In a 2014 effort to eliminate him, Deif escaped but lost his wife and infant son.
Deif is said to have directed the Oct. 7 attack against Israel, making him a prime target for Israeli forces. On Oct. 11, Israel hit the home of Deif’s father, killing his brother along with his brother’s wife and children.
The day of the attack on Israel’s south, Deif called on Arabs and Muslims across the Middle East to “set the Earth on fire under the feet of the occupiers [Israel].”
He released an audio message in which he dubbed Hamas’s multi-pronged attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” and called to “expel the occupiers and demolish the walls” of the Jewish state.
He also urged the “Islamic resistance in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon” to “merge their resistance with that of the Palestinians” and “start marching toward Palestine.”
Deif has commanded the Al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza since the 1990s and orchestrated a series of terrorist attacks on Israelis. He also oversaw Hamas’s armament program, its tunnel project and attempts to kidnap Israelis and use them as bargaining chips to secure the release of Palestinian security prisoners.
