Reuters is reporting on Hamas claims that an Israeli air strike in Gaza has killed the wife and infant son of Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Deif. According to the report:
Hamas
August 20 An Israeli air strike in Gaza killed the wife and infant son of Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Deif, the group said, calling it an attempt to assassinate him after a ceasefire collapsed.
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Hamas and medical officials said 19 people died in the latest Israeli raids, including Deif’s wife and seven-month-old son. Deif is widely believed to be masterminding the Islamist group’s military campaign from underground bunkers.
A Hamas official said Deif, head of Hamas’s Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades had not used the targeted house, from which the bodies of three members of the family that lived there were also pulled out of the rubble.
Chanting “Qassam, bomb Tel Aviv!”, thousands of Palestinians attended the funeral of Deif’s wife and son in Jabalya refugee camp. The woman’s mother told reporters she wished she had “another 100 daughters” to offer Deif in marriage.
Earlier this month, the GMBDW reported that The New York Times had published a profile of the little known Mohammed Deif. The article begins:
August 2, 2014 GAZA CITY — On a narrow, rubble-strewn Gaza street, where an Israeli airstrike recently obliterated the home of a top Hamas leader, a group of boys and men praised a shadowy, middle-age man most Palestinians have never seen — and whom Israel is eager to kill.
‘He’s a role model for us,’ declared Ahmed, 32, a Hamas security detail, clutching a walkie-talkie. ‘He’s a legend for the children, for everyone in Gaza.’
‘He is defending our homeland,’ agreed Yassin Abu Rialah, 14.
To Israelis, Mohammed Deif is enemy number one. As the top commander of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, Deif has tormented the Jewish state for three decades, deploying suicide bombers and directing the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. He has survived several attempts by Israel to assassinate him, earning him the nickname ‘the cat with nine lives.’
Deif, according to Israeli military and intelligence officials, is the mastermind of the Palestinian militant group’s current strategy of firing rockets at Israel and building tunnel networks through which highly trained fighters can infiltrate Israel. Those and other tactics have killed 63 Israeli soldiers and three civilians inside Israel since the war began July 8, making Deif the most wanted man in Gaza.”
