'He's a brutal murderer, he is a very dangerous and sophisticated person, bordering psychotic personality.'įor a number of Hamas supporters, however, Deif's enigmatic capacity to wage war from the shadows has long helped fuel support for his cause. 'You don't need to further blow up the myth,' Melamed adds. We may get to them, we may never get to them, they may be buried somewhere that we'll never know about, it's irrelevant to a large extent.' 'Israel's strategic objective is currently to destroy Hamas' military and organizational capacities. raid, Mughniyeh was slain in a 2008 joint CIA-Mossad operation and Mohammed was captured in a joint U.S.-Pakistani sting in 2003, Deif remains on the run as Israel's most wanted man.Īvi Melamed, former Israeli intelligence official and senior adviser on Arab affairs, tells Newsweek it is currently in the IDF's interest not to focus on the hunt for Deif, potentially further feeding into his reputation as a 'man of shadow' who still may ultimately get away.

airstrike, bin Laden died during a 2011 U.S. While Soleimani was killed in a 2020 U.S. Kupperwaser compares Deif to Iran's Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, Hezbollah military chief Imad Mughniyeh and 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of Al-Qaeda, telling Newsweek that, 'even though we don't try to make him as such, he has become a myth.' To many Israelis, he's their Osama bin Laden, the most readily identifiable face of 9/11. What sets Deif apart from other senior Hamas leaders, such as Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar and political head Ismail Haniyeh, according to Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of the IDF Intelligence Corps' Research Division and director general of Ministry of Strategic Affairs, 'is that he is a symbol more than anybody else.' Such an image presents a unique challenge to Israel. Photo-illustration by Gluekit for Newsweek Chasing a Myth Mohammed Deif, commander of the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, is seen in this stylized version of one of the few photos to exist of him, taken decades ago. 'Deif could become a Palestinian Che Guevara,' said a professor who has studied Hamas.

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