Unanimous assessment in security establishment is that Deif is dead, TV report claims

The unanimous assessment in Israel’s security establishment is that Hamas’s military commander Muhammad Deif was killed in Saturday’s airstrike on a compound in the Al-Mawasi area, Channel 12 reports.

The TV report, which is unsourced, says the IDF is “certain” that Deif and Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, were in the same building at the time of the strike in the southern Gaza Strip.

The IDF and Shin Bet yesterday confirmed that Salameh was killed in the airstrike, the report notes. “The assessment of all in the Israeli security establishment,” it says, is that Deif was also “eliminated.”

US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, meanwhile, has told Jewish leaders at a White House briefing that there are indications, but not confirmation, that Deif was killed, Jewish Insider reports.

On Saturday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was “not yet absolutely certain” that Deif was dead. Last night, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said Hamas was “trying to hide the results” of the attack.

The TV report says Hamas is going to great lengths to cover up what became of Deif, including by guarding the entrances and exits of the hospital where those who were injured in the strike are being treated — an apparent reference to Nasser Medical Center in Khan Younis.