Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’ armed wing, is still alive, according to one of the movement’s senior officials, Osama Hamdan.
In an interview with the Associated Press (AP) published on Thursday, Hamdan said the head of the Izz al-Din al Qassam Brigades was “fine” after Israel claimed to have killed him.
This is the first time a senior Hamas official has addressed the Israeli claim, made on 1 August, that Deif was killed in air strikes on 13 July.
Hamdan told AP that Hamas believes Israel claimed Deif was the target of the July attack to “justify the massacre” on that day, during which 88 Palestinians were killed in the bombing of a so-called humanitarian zone in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
At least 289 others were wounded, according to the Palestinian health ministry, as Israeli bombs struck tents housing displaced people in the al-Mawasi district of Khan Younis.
Nabil Walid, based in Khan Younis, told Middle East Eye at the time that a missile hit the Ajrar gas complex, which led to an explosion, while another missile struck a water desalination plant.
Aida Abed Mahmoud Hamdi, who was also in the area, told MEE she was baking when the first strike hit.
“I grabbed my daughter and we started running outside. I threw the dough and it was covered with sand. The kids gathered around me, hungry and wanting to eat,” she said.
“The strikes came one after the other. Even those around me, some of them died – men, women and young people.”
Israeli army radio reported that defence sources identified Mohammed Deif as the target of the strikes. However, Hamas dismissed this claim as “nonsense” at the time.
On 13 July, Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy head of Hamas in Gaza, told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to declare a “fake victory” by announcing an assassination attempt during a news conference.
Hayya reiterated that Israel’s claims of targeting Deif were false “despite the pain for the dozens of victims and martyrs, most of whom were women and children”.
“The blood of Mohammed Deif is not more valuable or better than the blood of the smallest Palestinian child. Still, we tell Netanyahu: you have failed. Mohammed Deif is listening to you now and mocking your false, empty statements,” Hayya said during the interview.
Two weeks later, on 1 August, Israel said it had confirmed Deif’s death through an intelligence assessment. It provided no further detail.
“Deif was responsible for the terrible massacre of 7 October and for many murderous attacks against Israeli civilians,” Netanyahu said. “He was Israel’s most-wanted person for years. His elimination establishes a very clear principle: whoever harms us, we will retaliate against them.”
MEE could not independently verify whether Deif was killed in the 13 July attack or another incident.
In May, Deif was named by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as one of three Hamas leaders for whom it sought arrest warrants on charges of extermination, murder, hostage-taking, and sexual assault and torture, among several other charges.
The other two were Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an Israeli attack in Tehran on 31 July, and Yahya Sinwar, who was named the new leader of Hamas last week.
Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are also being sought by the ICC for arrest warrants on war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the starvation of civilians as a method of war, wilfully causing great suffering, wilful killing, intentional attacks on a civilian population and extermination, among other charges.
