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Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, organised the deadly assault on Israel over the weekend. The attack plunging Israel and Gaza into a new war brings to the forefront a little-known character who has managed to elude Israel’s intelligence services for over 30 years.
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Mohammed Deif has been on Israel’s ‘most wanted’ list for nearly three decades. The leader of the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, is unlikely to lose the designation anytime soon.
Deif is behind the military operation launched from the Gaza Strip that caught Israel off guard on Saturday, October 7. After intense fighting that caused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare war on Hamas, Deif, perhaps more than ever, is in Tel Aviv’s crosshairs.
As Deif’s bounty rises, his star in Gaza is expected to rise too. His “prestige” was already strong, says Omri Brinner, an Israel and Middle East analyst at the International Team for the Study of Security Verona (ITSS). “But with this operation – the most successful in the history of Palestinian resistance – his legacy will live forever. He can fail now, Israel can assassinate him now: his legacy will outlast him.”
‘Nine lives’
As someone who has escaped multiple assassination attempts, Deif is the “ultimate survivor of Palestinian resistance”, says Brinner. His ability to evade Israeli intelligence services has earned him the nickname “the man with nine lives”.
Considered an international terrorist by the United States since 2015, Deif has represented a direct and constant threat to the internal security of Israel for over 30 years. “Militancy against Israel is a field with low life expectancy. It’s quite remarkable that he has been able to survive so long. He is a long-lasting stain on Israel’s reputation of taking down designated…
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Source : france24
