Avi Issacharoff looks at the video released by Hamas after it killed five Israeli soldiers near Nahal Oz on Monday night, and at the recorded speech by Hamas terror chief Mohammad Deif.
While Hamas leaders Mashaal and Haniyeh have sounded like politicians in recent days, he writes, “Deif’s declaration reeked of messianic, Islamist fervor, a world away from the delights of Doha and even the relative immunity enjoyed by Haniyeh.”
Izz ad-Dine al-Qassam Brigades’s chief Mohammed Deif delivering a recorded address after a Hamas terrorist infiltration into Israel. (screen capture: YouTube/Gal Berger)
“Deif’s statement was peppered with Koranic slogans, and his shadowy image in the video was embellished with ornate Arabic calligraphy. The aim was to create the sense that this was a sacred message, and his voice echoed as though he were a living saint. In short, someone in Hamas’s military wing was trying to present Deif as a direct heir to the Prophet Muhammad.”
A ceasefire now, Issacharoff notes, “would likely relegate Hamas again to the margins of the international agenda, along with its superhero, the mighty religious warrior Muhammad Deif.”
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