“This is the day of the greatest battle to end the last occupation of the Earth,” Mohamed Deif announced on Saturday, in a video broadcast by the media of Hamas, the organization that invaded Israel by land and air this end of week. In the recording, a dark silhouette appeared, representing the almost never seen leader of Hamas, announcing the beginning of the Al-Aqsa military operation. "Enough is enough," Deif said and thus asked all Palestinians to join the struggle.
Deif is the leader of the Al-Qassam brigades, the military branch of Hamas, and is high on Israel's list of most wanted men. His original name is not known for sure, but his nicknames say it all. Deif means guest in Arabic, a reference to the lifestyle of Palestinian fighters, who sleep in a different house every night to escape Israeli intelligence. He is also known as “the cat with nine lives” for his survival of numerous assassination attempts.
20 years ago, he lost a leg and an arm in one of those attacks and in 2014 an Israeli rocket hit his home, killing his wife and two children.
The guest was born in the 1960s, in the Khan Younis refugee camp, a territory southwest of Gaza, then occupied by Egypt. In his youth he became familiar with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization from which Hamas emerged. Later, during his time at the Islamic University of Gaza, he deepened his commitment to the Islamist movement, which aims to apply sharia, Islamic law, to all areas of public life.
In the late 1990s, Deif joined the armed ranks of Hamas and soon came under the spotlight of Israel's intelligence services. In 1996 he would be the ringleader of several suicide bomb attacks, which would give him wide recognition within the organization, and would help him rise to the leadership of the military wing of Hamas in 2002.
While for Israel Mohamed Deif became its main objective, for Hamas fighters he would become their maximum reference. He is credited with crucial elements for Hamas troops, such as the design of the first homemade rockets used by the organization and the underground tunnel system in Gaza, where some suggest he could hide.
Deif's biography seems almost a myth. He could be hiding underground or walking among the masses in some Gaza city. Few recognize his face, there is only one photo of him. The unusual Hamas offensive this weekend would have been led by a ghost man in a wheelchair.
