IDF waited weeks to strike Salameh’s compound in hope Deif would visit — report

Military believed Hamas military chief would likely join his close ally at some point due to health problems that prevented him from remaining underground for long, NY Times says

Palestinians inspect the damage at a site hit by an Israeli operation targeting Hamas's shadowy military commander Muhammad Deif in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, July 13, 2024.  (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians inspect the damage at a site hit by an Israeli operation targeting Hamas's shadowy military commander Muhammad Deif in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Israel was monitoring Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, for weeks before striking his location Saturday, in hopes the terror group’s military commander Muhammad Deif would show up there, the New York Times reported Sunday night, citing Israeli officials.

Israel believes Deif did so on Saturday, leading to the strike that is confirmed to have killed Salameh, though Deif’s fate remains unknown.

Hamas has claimed some 90 people were killed in the strike and accused Israel of carrying out a “horrifying massacre” against civilians. Security officials have said many of those killed were Hamas operatives, with the strike conducted in a fenced-off area used by the organization.

Israel had been monitoring the compound in the Al-Mawasi area, where Salameh’s family owned a villa, for several months, three senior Israeli officials told the Times. Despite receiving confirmation weeks ago that the Khan Younis brigade commander was present, the strike was delayed in the hope that Deif would eventually venture out from the underground tunnels where he was thought to be hiding and join him there. the report said.

Deif and Salameh had a close relationship, the IDF said on Sunday, describing Salameh as one of the “closest associates” of the leader of Hamas’s Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

This, combined with intelligence that indicated Deif couldn’t spend extended time underground due to health problems caused by multiple failed assassination attempts, led the IDF to suspect he would eventually join Salameh at the designated humanitarian zone.

Salameh was reported to have been at the compound for significant periods in recent months, along with his family and other Hamas operatives, as IDF troops advanced on most of his other Khan Younis strongholds. The unnamed officials told the Times Salameh was often underground in the tunnels, but found the sprawling underground network stifling, which accounted for his willingness to spend time in the open.

The compound was located in the middle of an olive grove, with low buildings, sheds and tarps purportedly meant to prevent drones from gathering information on it. However, the Walla news site reported Monday that Israel was able to gather intel regardless.

Citing unnamed defense officials, the outlet reported that Hamas officials appeared to erroneously believe Israeli forces would be unlikely to suspect the location due to its relative exposure, and would also be unlikely to strike it due to its proximity to tent camps of displaced Palestinians.

The head of Hamas’s military wing Muhammad Deif (left) and Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, in an undated photo. (Courtesy)

The New York Times said intelligence officers received the first indication that Deif had arrived at the compound on Friday, at which point Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed off on plans to launch the strike. At 10 a.m. the next morning, after the IDF received further confirmation that Deif was present, fighter jets took off for Gaza.

After the strike military sources said several dozen more Hamas operatives were in the area when it was targeted, including Deif and Salameh’s guards. Nevertheless, photos emerging from Gaza showed bodies of children and elderly individuals, purportedly from the scene.

Israel believed that the risk posed to civilians by the strike was reduced due to the targets being located within the Hamas compound, officials explained to the Times.

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip set up a tent camp in the al-Mawasi area, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

Hamas has denied that Deif was harmed, while Israeli defense officials have said there is a high likelihood he was killed, but there has been no confirmation as of yet.

The IDF believes the intelligence indicating Deif’s presence at the scene was highly accurate, and that if Deif was dead, Hamas would attempt to hide the truth for some time.

On Sunday evening, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi conceded that it was “still too early to summarize the results of the attack,” which he accused Hamas of trying to conceal.

Deif was one of the chief architects of the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists broke through the border and killed 1,200 people while taking 251 hostages. He has been one of the figures most wanted by Israel since 1995 for his involvement in the planning and execution of a large number of terror attacks, including bus bombings in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Saturday’s strike was Israel’s eighth attempt to eliminate the shadowy terrorist leader, who survived multiple attempts on his life between 2001 and 2021. He was seriously injured in two of them.

Deif would be the most senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip to be slain by Israel amid the ongoing war, after his deputy, Marwan Issa, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in March. Hamas’s deputy political leader, Salah al-Arouri, was assassinated by Israel in an airstrike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut in January.

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