Report: Israel assassinated Deif after being tipped off by Hamas courier
Caught by terror group, operative responsible for transferring written messages between Hamas brass reportedly confesses to having passed along extensive intel to Israeli handler
A Hamas operative reportedly confessed to having tipped off Israeli security forces on the location of the terror group’s military wing chief Muhammad Deif in what led the IDF to launch a strike that assassinated the top official moments later.
Citing a “responsible security source in Hamas,” the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news outlet said Monday that the Hamas informant was responsible for passing along written messages from the head of the group’s Rafah Brigade Muhammad Shabana to other senior Hamas members.
Hamas leaders in Gaza are believed to be communicating throughout the war via written messages delivered by couriers in order to avoid being tracked by Israel.
The informant linked to Deif’s assassination was subsequently caught and was being interrogated by Hamas, the Al Arabiya report indicated.
The courier told Hamas interrogators that his Israeli handler had shown him a picture of Deif and ordered him to report back if he ever saw the Hamas military chief. The courier confessed to having spotted Deif while transferring messages on July 13 and having immediately informed his Israel handler. The IDF carried out the strike minutes later, the report said.
The same courier confessed to giving Israel information leading to three assassination attempts on Shabana along with details on Hamas’s arms caches and tunnel network in Rafah, according to Al Arabiya.
The IDF says Deif — the commander of Hamas’s military wing — was killed in an airstrike on a building in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis where he was meeting Rafa’a Salameh, head of the terror group’s Khan Younis Brigade. Salameh was confirmed killed the next day, but Israel did not confirm Deif’s death until August 1. Hamas has denied Deif was killed.
The Israeli army said its fighter jets patrolled the Khan Younis compound for half a day before the strike was carried out and that the execution order was given within a few minutes of receiving intelligence that Deif had arrived.
The unconfirmed Al Arabiya report also said the terror group’s top brass was no longer being protected by its General Security Service because the latter is believed to be compromised.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said over 90 people were killed in the strike on Deif. The IDF has placed the death toll in the dozens and insisted that many of the casualties were terror operatives.
Dief was considered an architect of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
Before the war, Deif had survived at least seven assassination attempts by Israel.
