Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday night that it could not be confirmed whether Hamas terror master Mohammed Deif and his deputy, Rafa’a Salameh, were killed in a strike in Gaza earlier in the day.
Speaking at a press conference at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, the premier remarked that “while there is no absolute certainty yet that they were eliminated, I would like to assure you that one way or another, we will reach the entire Hamas leadership.”
Deif is the second in command in Gaza after Yahya Sinwar, the IDF’s top target after the two men led the planning and execution of the Oct. 7 massacre of over a thousand people in southern Israel. Deif, 58, the head of Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, is also responsible for planning several bus bombing attacks in the 1990s and 2000s.
Saying that Deif’s “hands are soaked in the blood of many Israelis,” Netanyahu described his approval of the operation, which was presented to him by Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Ronen Bar.
“I wanted to know three things: First of all, I wanted to know that, according to the intelligence, there were no hostages around them. Second, I wanted to know the scope of the collateral damage. Third, I asked about the type of munitions” to be used, the premier said.
“When I received satisfactory answers, I approved the action and said, ‘May it be a great success.’ This success will rid the Middle East and the entire world of these arch-murderers,” he added.
Deif and Salameh, the commander of the terror group’s Khan Younis Brigade, were targeted in a building above ground close to the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone and the city of Khan Younis.
Hamas sources confirmed that Salameh was killed in the Israeli strike, while refusing to confirm or deny Deif’s death, according to a Sunday morning report in the pan-Arab daily newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.
A top Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that Deif was “fine” despite the Israeli assassination attempt. “Commander Mohammed Deif is well and directly overseeing” the terror group’s armed wing, the official said.
Israel’s Kan News reported on Saturday night that senior security officials told the political echelon during a situational assessment that Deif was wounded from the attack, and that they are waiting for final confirmation, which could take time. The security officials also confirmed that Salameh was killed.
If Deif was killed in the strike, Muhammad Sinwar, the commander of Hamas’s Southern Brigade and a younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, would replace him as head of the Qassam Brigades, the Hamas sources told Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday. Muhammad Sinwar is considered one of the key planners of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
A member of Hamas’s military council, he was responsible for the construction of the largest tunnel found by Israeli forces in Gaza, which approached the Erez border crossing.
The younger Sinwar has survived six targeted killing attempts, while Deif had survived seven before Saturday’s strike.
In addition to “excellent intelligence and operations work,” the prime minister credited the rejection of the “great internal and external pressure to end the war before achieving all of its objectives.”
“At the start of the war, I set a rule: The Hamas murderers are dead men walking, from the first of them to the last. We will settle accounts with them,” said Netanyahu. “The elimination of senior Hamas leaders advances the achievement of all of our objectives: The elimination of Hamas, the release of all of our hostages, and the removal of future threats from Gaza against Israel. It also advances our objectives regarding other sectors because it sends a deterrent message to all of Iran’s proxies—and to Iran itself.”
