Mohammed Deif: Hamas’ wheelchair-bound military leader and mastermind of the Israel attacks

“In the light of the continuing crimes against our people, in the light of the orgy of occupation and its denial of international laws and resolutions, and in the light of American and Western support, we’ve decided to put an end to all this… so that the enemy understands that he can no longer revel without being held to account.”

A shadowy voice said in a message on Saturday (7 October) as Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, unleashed terror on the people of Israel though Operation Al-Aqsa flood – launching a barrage of rockets and its troops being able to hoodwink Israeli intelligence and enter parts of the country and open fire on the people.

The attacks have evoked a large-scale counter from Israel and the ensuing violence has already claimed the lives of nearly 1,600 people.

As the violence ensues, it emerged that the voice on the message was none other than Mohammed Deif, the military commander of the Palestinian terror group Hamas. But who is this shadowy figure, better known as The Guest, who has climbed to the highest rungs of Palestinian leadership.

Deif’s early life

Today, Deif, as Mkhaimar Abusada – a professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza – told Medium, is seen as a “sacred and highly respected figure” among Hamas and Palestinians. But that wasn’t always the case.

He came from nothing. He was born Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza during the 1960s, which was at the time under the control of Egypt. The Financial Times reports that either Deif’s uncle or father participated in the sporadic raids of the 1950s by armed Palestinians on the same stretch of land where fighters infiltrated on Saturday.

Little is known about him. There’s only a single photograph of him. But according to early friends and people around him, he is gentle, and has a good sense of humour.

As per security dossiers made on him, he was a student at the Islamic University of Gaza, a hotbed for the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood’s style of political Islam.

Deif’s role in Hamas

When in his 20s, Deif joined the Hamas. In 1996, he was held responsible by the Israelis for the deaths of many in suicide bombings, including the one that claimed over 50 lives. It is said that these bombings were Deif’s response to the Oslo Peace Accords signed in the early 1990s between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Deif, as well as Hamas, believe the accords effectively meant a loss of territory for Palestinians.

Believed to be a student of Yahya Ayyash, a bomb-maker nicknamed “The Engineer,” who was assassinated by Israel in 1996, Deif’s bomb-making skills became known through the region.

He then further became more entrenched in the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. An Israeli official has also said that it was Deif’s efforts that led to Hamas developing its rudimentary rockets. Today, Hamas is known to have a huge stockpile of rockets that it uses against Israel.

The Israeli official, as per the report in the Medium, also said that Deif sought high-impact targets such as settlers and soldiers in the occupied territories, buses in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and personally oversaw rocket barrages. He didn’t agree to ceasing hostilities.

In 2002, he assumed leadership of the Brigades after its previous leader, Salah Shehade, was killed by an Israeli airstrike.

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Hiding in the shadows

Deif is not fond of public appearances and is often sequestered away. He also earned the nickname, The Guest, for his penchant for spending nights under different roofs. Before Saturday’s message, he was last heard in May 2021, where he cautioned Israel of the “heavy price” for not meeting Hamas’s demands related to Jerusalem.

But his actions have earned him the attention of Israel’s intelligence and security agencies, who have put him right on top of the “most wanted” list. There’s also been a number of assassination attempts against him; the Daily Mail reports that he has survived five assassination attempts that saw both of his legs and an arm blown off and his wife and two children killed. He’s also managed to lose an eye in the attacks. Some say he’s wheelchair-bound.

Ronen Bergman, an Israeli journalist specialising in security affairs, once told the New York Times: “Deif is the only prime military figure in Hamas to have survived so long. The fact that he was able to escape multiple assassination attempts and recover from severe injuries has built him the image and prestige of a bulletproof legend.”

‘The new Osama bin Laden’

Declared a terrorist by the United States in 2009, Deif is a skilled commander and mastermind of Hamas’ military strategy.

According to Mkhaimar Abusada, Deif is “exactly like Osama Bin Laden. This is an arch-murderer.”

Like Osama, he too has a taste for the theatrics, as is evident from Saturday’s attack, and this love for drama comes from his time at an acting troupe he joined when he was at the Islamic University of Gaza.

It is reported that it was Deif’s clever planning that eventually saw the infiltration of 1,000 Hamas men into Israel, wreaking havoc and taking hostages.

Following the first few hours of the attack, Deif put out another statement, calling it “the day of the great revolution.”

He also urged Israeli Arabs to take up arms, and encourages Arabs on Israel’s borders to join in the attack. “Today, the people are bringing back the revolution and reviving the March of return,” he said, asking Arabs in Jerusalem and inside Israel, in the Negev, the Galilee and the Triangle area to “set the earth on fire under the feet of the occupiers.”

With inputs from agencies