Israel targeted in an airstrike on Saturday. He was located in the Mawasi area of southern Gaza, which was designated as a humanitarian zone early in the war. Whether or not Deif is dead may not be that important.
If he is dead, it will have removed a key commander who has had the unique ability to elude targeted strikes in the past. Al-Ain media in the UAE referred to him as a “ghost” who has nine lives, for instance. The problem with Deif is that he was able to become so powerful in the first place.
Israel has eliminated a number of Hamas commanders and leaders in the past, including Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Rantisi, Salah Mustafa Muhammad Shehade, and others during the Second Intifada, for instance. and Marwan Issa were eliminated after October 7. It’s not entirely clear how much of a setback this has been for Hamas.
The organization has replaced leaders in the past, and it also assumed after October 7 that it would lose most of the leaders in Gaza. However, Hamas has insulated itself well from major repercussions for October 7. This is the wider problem that Deif represents in a sense.
Because Deif is never seen in public and has existed as a kind of “ghost” for so long, it’s possible to assume that the real story of Hamas is not found in its murderous leaders in Gaza or their battalion and brigade commanders. Israel already believes it has eliminated sixty percent of the Hamas fighters that existed in October. Most Hamas battalions have supposedly been defeated.
Yet the organization persists. Its leadership lives in Doha in Qatar. Doha is a key US ally in the region.
The fact that Hamas was able to murder more than 1,000 Jews, the most killed in a single attack since the Shoah and Hamas leaders live in luxury in a US and Western ally tells us a lot more about Hamas than Deif’s death might tell us. This is because Hamas planned October 7 as part of a wider war on Israel. It is a war backed by Turkey, a member of NATO, and also by Doha, Tehran, Moscow, Beijing, and many other countries.
Hamas has systematically used UN facilities in Gaza, primarily UNRWA facilities. Its members also work for international NGOs and partner with them. Hamas has bought their silence, such that they don’t condemn Hamas or even mention it in statements.
They call it an “armed group.” When Deif was killed, major media in the West called him a “military chief.” How can Deif be a “military chief” if he never appears in public and doesn’t wear a uniform? Yet Western media portrays him as if he has the same rank as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the US or a key general in the UK or Germany.
“Military chief” would refer to that rank in any other conflict. When the US targeted Osama Bin Laden or ISIS leader Baghdadi, the Western press didn’t call them “military chiefs.” Only Hamas gets this privilege.
It is a unique privilege and represents another aspect of the Deif problem. Hamas members dress as civilians. When they are killed, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza calls them all civilians.
Yet they are called “military chiefs” by Western media. They are both civilians in death and military chiefs and “armed groups.” At each juncture, Hamas gets all the privileges.
The privilege to hide in UN schools, the privilege to hide in a humanitarian zone, and to also pretend to be a “military” even though it systematically massacres civilians and has destroyed Gaza over the last decades of its illegal, criminal rule. This is the Deif problem. If Hamas was just Deif, then it could be eliminated by killing off its commanders and destroying it bit by bit.
But it is not just Deif. It is Deif, the “military chief,” and also Deif, the civilian, and Deif, the “armed group” leader. Hamas leaders live abroad in luxury, backed not just by Western allies but also by Russia, China, and Iran.
Hamas is also treated as a kind of proxy against Israel by Western progressives, who call it “resistance.” Therefore, Deif is also the ”resistance.” Israel also has a Deif problem because it allowed most of these Hamas leaders to thrive for so long.
Most of them could have been eliminated decades ago. Many of them were in fact imprisoned by Israel at one time or another and then released in previous deals. Israel has always allowed Hamas to survive, in some form, either due to negligence, ignorance of the Hamas threat, or even cynical decisions at the top that thought Hamas might balance the Palestinian Authority.
This enabled Hamas to become a massively powerful genocidal group that carried out on October 7. Deif enjoyed the privilege of enabling this monstrous attack. For too long, he has had that privilege, and Hamas has not felt hunted like Bin Laden or Baghdadi were.
Even if Deif is dead, the Hamas leaders openly relax abroad. There are no consequences for them. The International Criminal Court applied for an arrest warrant against Deif.
The ICC mentioned him, alongside Yahya Sinwar and Doha-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and accused them of bearing “criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed” on October 7. If Deif is dead, then someone will need to confirm that and tell the ICC that one war criminal genocidal mastermind can be removed from the docket. Either way, the Deif problem will continue.
Israel has been fighting for nine months in Gaza. Deif should have been eliminated long ago, along with the rest of the monstrous genocidal beast that Hamas became on October 7. The tolerance that the international community has had for Deif and which Israel, in a sense, had by not removing him years ago will always haunt us as the Deif problem.
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