Deif’s recovery a major failure for Israel, Hamas says

Israeli intelligence assessments showing that Hamas military commander Muhammad Deif survived an IDF assassination attempt show the military’s growing frustration with its inability to defeat the Gazan terror group, the organization’s political leader in the Strip said Wednesday.

Ismail Haniyeh was reacting to reports in the Israeli press that Israeli defense officials believe Deif to be alive and back at the helm of the Hama’s armed forces.

“This is proof of the victory of the Palestinian resistance,” Haniyeh told reporters in Gaza, according to Israel Radio.

The Hamas leader added that he anticipated the Palestinian commander would continue to be “a thorn in the throat of the occupation.”

Deif, 51, was targeted in an August 19 IDF strike on a home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of the Gaza Strip last summer, during the 50-day war there.

His wife and two children were killed in the bombing, but Deif’s fate was not disclosed, although Hamas was quick to report that he had survived. Israeli intelligence on Tuesday assessed that Deif survived the attack and has returned to active participation in the high command of the Hamas military wing.

The long-time commander of Hamas’s military wing has survived five Israeli assassination attempts. In September 2002 he emerged, wounded, from the charred remains of a vehicle that had been hit by an IAF missile. In 2006, he was wounded again, reportedly losing his limbs in an additional IAF strike.

During the last days of the war in Gaza in the summer, the Shin Bet produced concrete evidence of Deif’s whereabouts on the bottom floor of a home on al-Ramal Street in Gaza City. At nine in the evening of August 19, the Air Force was cleared to drop bombs on the home and demolish it.

According to an October episode of Israel’s top investigative news program, “Uvda,” the two bombs meant to reach the bottom floor did not detonate. Although there was no concrete evidence of Deif having survived yet again, a senior Shin Bet officer, identified only as R, made his disappointment plain without confirming directly that Deif was alive.

As head of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Deif was responsible for planning and executing a long string of terror attacks that killed dozens or even hundreds of Israelis. He is one of Israel’s most sought-after targets for assassination.

Deif’s apparent recovery comes amid sustained efforts by Hamas to rebuild its offensive capabilities against Israel, including the conscription of new fighters, rehabilitating its cross-border attack tunnels and restocking its rocket arsenal with longer-distance rockets. All those efforts are hampered by Egypt’s persistent targeting of Hamas’s cross-border tunnels into Sinai by Egypt.