Israel’s military says it has intelligence confirmation that Hamas commander Mohammed Deif was killed in a July 13 air strike targeting him, Arab media reported.

The attack, which hit tents housing displaced people in al-Mawasi in southern Gaza, killed more than 90 people, but there was no confirmation at the time Deif was among them. Hamas said he had evaded the assault.

Now Israel says it can confirm Deif was killed.

While there has been no immediate confirmation from Hamas about the Israeli army’s claim about Deif’s killing, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant hailed it as “a significant milestone in the process of dismantling Hamas as a military and governing authority in Gaza”.

Hamas member Izzat al-Rashq said in a post on Telegram that there is no confirmation over the Israeli claim that it killed Deif last month.

“Confirming or denying the martyrdom of any of the Qassam leaders is a matter for the leadership of the Qassam Brigades and the leadership of the movement,” the post said.

More than 39,480 Palestinians have been killed and 91,128 have been injured in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since October 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Who was Deif?

Deif, 58, was one of the founders of the Qassam Brigades in the 1990s and led the force for more than 20 years.

Born as Mohammad Masri in 1965 in the Khan Younis refugee camp, set up after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, he became known as Mohammed Deif after joining Hamas during the first Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which began in 1987.

Rising up the ranks, Deif developed the group’s network of tunnels and its bomb-making expertise and topped Israel’s most wanted list for decades.

His wife, seven-month-old son and three-year-old daughter were killed in an Israeli air raid in 2014.

He is believed to have survived seven previous Israeli assassination attempts, the most recent in 2021, which earned him respect and fame among many Palestinians.

The Israeli military regarded him as being part of a three-man military council that planned the October 7 attacks on southern Israel that killed 1,139 people while more than 200 were taken captive.

In an audio tape broadcast on the same day, Deif named the raid “Al-Aqsa Flood”, signalling it was payback for Israeli raids at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.

Deif is thought to have directed military operations from the tunnels and backstreets of Gaza with senior colleagues in the months since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.