A photo taken from Rafah shows thick smoke billowing over Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment as fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas continues on March 4, 2024.
Khatib says | AFP | Getty Images
The Israeli military said Thursday that an airstrike in July killed Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing.
IDF “We can now confirm: Mohammed Deif has been eliminated” Posted on their official X account.
The military said it had spent weeks trying to confirm whether Deif, the target of the attack in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, was killed in the blast, while Hamas denied his death. Hamas had no immediate comment on Thursday’s IDF statement when contacted by CNBC.
Israel says Deif and Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s top leader in the Gaza Strip, were the main architects of the October 7 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and 253 others. People are being held hostage. Some 116 of those prisoners have now been released.
The October attack triggered a war between Israel and Hamas, now in its tenth month, and an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza enclave that local authorities say has killed more than 39,000 people.
The IDF announcement came just a day after Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an attack on Tehran. Hamas and Iran say it was Israel’s fault, while the Jewish state declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death.
This is a breaking news story and is being updated.
