Dramatic moment Hamas massacre mastermind Mohammed ‘The Guest’ Deif is eviscerated in Israeli airstrike in Gaza
DRAMATIC footage has caught the moment Israel wiped out Hamas terror maniac Mohammed Deif in a precision airstrike in Gaza.
One-eyed Mohammed Deif, dubbed “The Guest”, was one of the terrorist architects behind the October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people in Israel last year.
The aerial footage, shared this morning by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), shows a residential camp in western Khan Younis being hit by a massive airstrike.
A huge fireball explosion can be seen just seconds after the attack in which the IDF dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs.
The Israeli military said it carried out the “precise, targeted” strike on a compound in Gaza on July 13 – targeting Mohammed Deif and his associates.
However, they only revealed today that they were successful in wiping out the Hamas’ deputy terror boss.
In a statement released this morning, the IDF said: “The IDF announces that on July 13th, 2024, IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike.
“Mohammed Deif was the Commander of Hamas’ Military Wing, and second in command of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip,” the army added.
The statement added: “Deif initiated, planned, and executed the October 7th Massacre, in which 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel and 251 hostages abducted into the Gaza Strip.”
Rafa Salama, the commander of Hamas’ Khan Younis brigade, was also killed in the strike, the IDF said.
Deif, along with Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar and political chief Ismail Haniyeh, was one of three top targets for the Israeli forces.
The shadowy figure has been wanted by Israeli intelligence since the late 1990s when he first began establishing al-Qassam Brigades.
The one-eyed chief, known as the anonymous “voice of war”, had lurked in the shadows for years.
A man of infamy, terror and anonymity – he has long haunted the Gaza Strip as the commander of Hamas’s military wing.
For decades, Israel has relentlessly pursued Deif as he has moved in darkness, through underground tunnels and safe houses across the Gaza Strip.
Previously compared to Osama Bin Laden, he has dodged more than a dozen assassination attempts and countless strikes from Israel over the years.
One of the attempts to take out Deif, an air strike in 2021, confined him to life in a wheelchair after he lost both his legs, one arm and an eye.
He survives by hiding out in Gaza’s underground tunnel network — which he helped plan — or moving to new safe houses every night.
Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said this morning: “Muhammad Deif, the ‘Osama Bin Laden of Gaza,’ was eliminated on 13.07.24.
“This is a significant milestone in the process of dismantling Hamas as a military and governing authority in Gaza, and in the achievement of the goals of this war.
“This operation reflects the fact that Hamas is disintegrating and that Hamas terrorists may either surrender or they will be eliminated.
The blood-curling crimes of Mohammed Deif
ONE-eyed, wheel-chair bound maniac Mohammed Deif started from nothing but rode the tides of fury and terror to command the ruthless fighters responsible for the deaths of 1,000 Israelis.
The Hamas chief was born Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri in 1965 and grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza.
He would later become known as only Deif — which means “The Guest” in Arabic – a nod to his life spent on the run, staying with sympathisers and evading Israeli assassins and air strikes.
Little is known about his childhood, but it was spent enduring the grinding Israel-Palestinian conflict that has long scarred the Middle East.
The shadowy figure has been wanted by Israeli intelligence since the 1990s when he first began establishing al-Qassam Brigades.
He is believed to have first joined Hamas in the late 1980s, hardened in his pursuit to wage armed resistance against Israel.
Deif began rising in influence and power and reportedly was a close confidante of Yehya Ayyash – a bomb-maker known as “the engineer”.
The militant commander was responsible for a deadly spate of bus bombings in Israel in the 1990s until he was eventually assassinated in 1996.
But the bombings continued with Deif believed to be at the helm and hell-bent on revenge for the killing of his former ally.
Hundreds of Israelis were killed in the suicide attacks that the terror chief orchestrated on buses and in cafes.
In 2002, he took over as leader of Hamas’ militant wing, where he designed both their signature Qassam rocket and a matrix of underground tunnels in Gaza.
Deif had spent most of his adult life confined to these tunnels as Israel attempted to target him from above.
He survived numerous assassination attempts throughout the 2000s, escaping some with life-altering injuries
“We will not rest until this mission is accomplished.”
News of his death comes just days after another Israeli precision strike took out Haniyeh as he slept soundly in Iran’s capital.
Israel has yet to officially comment on its hit on political Hamas boss Haniyeh in the early hours of Tuesday.
One of the founding members of the terror group, Haniyeh unflinchingly represented the bloodthirsty cult for decades, even past the death of his own children.
He was traced by Israeli spies as he attended the inauguration of the new Iranian president in Tehran on Monday.
Israel’s secretive Shin Bet intelligence arm discovered exactly which room of his accommodation Haniyeh was sleeping in, with scores of others also in the block.
A rocket was then launched from a drone into his room, detonating and killing him and his bodyguard.
With the deaths of the two senior Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar, dubbed “Gaza’s Bin Laden”, is now the only remaining Israeli target in the top Hamas leadership.
The ruthless terror boss is believed to be hiding out in the tunnels of the war-torn Strip – and using human hostages to dodge assassination attempts by the IDF.
COULD THIS IGNITE MIDDLE EAST TINDERBOX?
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed Iran had a “duty to avenge” the death and promised to “severely punish the Zionist Entity”.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard pledged a “harsh and painful response” while the country said earlier the assassination crossed a “red line” and it would be “costly for the enemy”.
The head of the Palestinian Authority denounced the killing of Hamas’ leader, branding it “a cowardly act” in a post on X.
Hussein al-Sheikh said: “We strongly denounce and condemn the assassination of the head of the Political Bureau, the national leader, Ismail Haniyeh.”
“We consider it a cowardly act, this pushes us to remain more steadfast in the face of the occupation, and the necessity of achieving the unity of the Palestinian forces and factions.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the attack escalated the “war in Gaza to a regional level”.
“If the international community does not take action to stop Israel, our region will face much larger conflicts.”
Turkey’s comments come days after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to invade Israel.
Hezbollah said the killing of the Hamas boss would only “increase determination and stubbornness of resistance fighters across all resistance fronts”.
Al-Qassam Brigades said Israel will “pay the price for its aggression with its blood”.