“Two Brains, One Mastermind”: How a Hamas Commander Planned an Attack on Israel

Deif’s location are unknown, but he is most likely in Gaza, somewhere in the tangle of tunnels beneath the enclave

Israel refers to last week’s catastrophic Hamas attack as its 9/11 moment. Palestinian insurgent Mohammed Deif, the attack’s covert mastermind, refers to it as the Al Aqsa Flood. The word used by Israel’s most wanted man in an audio tape broadcast as Hamas launched thousands of rockets from Gaza on Saturday signified the strike was retaliation for Israeli raids on Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa shrine.

According to a source close to Hamas in Gaza, Deif began organising the operation that has killed more than 1,200 people in Israel in May 2021, following an attack on Islam’s third holiest shrine that infuriated the Arab and Muslim world.

It was inspired by sights and footage of Israel assaulting Al Aqsa mosque during Ramadan, beating and attacking worshippers, and dragging elderly and young men out of the mosque,” a source added. “All this fuelled and ignited the anger.”

The invasion of the mosque compound, which has long been a hotspot for conflict in Jerusalem over issues of sovereignty and religion, helped spark 11 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

More than two years later, Saturday’s attack, the largest breach in Israeli defences since the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1973, prompted Israel to declare war and unleash retaliatory strikes on Gaza, killing almost 800 people by Tuesday.

Deif, who has survived seven Israeli murder attempts, the latest recent in 2021, rarely speaks and rarely appears in public. When Hamas’ TV channel announced on Saturday that he was due to speak, Palestinians knew something big was about to happen.

“Today, Al Aqsa’s rage, the rage of our people and nation, is exploding.” “Today is your day, mujahedeen (fighters), to make this criminal understand that his time has come,” Deif stated in the recording.

There are only three photographs of Deif: one of him in his twenties, one of him masked, and one of his shadow, which was used when the audio cassette was broadcast.

Deif’s location are unknown, but he is most likely in Gaza, somewhere in the tangle of tunnels beneath the enclave. According to an Israeli security source, Deif was actively involved in the attack’s planning and execution.

ONE MASTERMIND, TWO BRAINS

According to Palestinian accounts, one of the homes struck by Israeli air strikes in Gaza overnight belonged to Deif’s father. According to the sources, Deif’s brother and two other family members were killed in the hit.

According to a Hamas source, the decision to plan the strike was made jointly by Deif, the commander of Hamas’ Al Qassam Brigades, and Yehya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, but it was unclear who was the architect.

“There are two brains, but there is one mastermind,” the insider added, adding that only a few Hamas leaders were aware of the operation.

According to a regional source familiar with the group’s thinking, Iran, Israel’s sworn foe and an important source of finance, training, and weaponry for Hamas, knew only in broad strokes that the movement was planning a major operation but did not know the timing or details.

According to the source, while Tehran was aware of the planned attack, it was not addressed in any joint operations rooms comprising Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, Iranian-backed Lebanese militants Hezbollah, and Iran.

“It was a very tight circle,” stated the person.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, stated on Tuesday that Tehran was not engaged in the attack on Israel. Washington has stated that, while Tehran was involved, there was no intelligence or proof pointing to Iran’s direct involvement in the assaults.

The plan, as imagined by Deif, entailed a lengthy period of deception. Israel was encouraged to believe that Hamas, an ally of Israel’s arch-foe Iran, was not interested in starting a war and was instead focused on economic development in Gaza, where the movement is the ruling party.

However, while Israel began providing economic incentives to Gazan employees, Hamas fighters were being trained and drilled, frequently in full view of the Israeli military, according to a source close to the organisation.

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“We have been preparing for this battle for two years,” said Ali Baraka, Hamas’s chief of external affairs.

In his audio, Deif stated calmly that Hamas has repeatedly warned Israel to stop its atrocities against Palestinians, release detainees who he claimed were abused and tortured, and stop expropriating Palestinian land.

“Every day, the occupation raids our villages, towns, and cities in the West Bank, killing, injuring, destroying, and detaining people.” Simultaneously, it confiscates thousands of acres of our land, uproots our people from their homes to create colonies, and maintains a criminal siege on Gaza.”

‘IN THE DARKNESS’

For well over a year, there has been unrest in the West Bank, a region about 100 kilometres (60 miles) long and 50 kilometres wide that has been at the centre of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute since Israel took it in 1967.

Deif stated that Hamas had pushed the international community to cease the “crimes of occupation,” but Israel had increased its provocations. He also stated that Hamas had previously sought Israel for a humanitarian bargain to release Palestinian detainees, but that this had been denied.

“In light of the orgy of occupation and its denial of international laws and resolutions, and in light of American and western support and international silence, we’ve decided to put an end to all this,” he stated.

The militant leader, Mohammed Deif, was born Mohammad Masri in 1965 in the Khan Yunis Refugee Camp, which was established following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He joined Hamas during the first Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which started in 1987.

According to a Hamas source, he was detained by Israel for around 16 months after his 1989 arrest.

Deif graduated with honours from the Islamic University of Gaza, where he studied physics, chemistry, and biology. He had a passion for the arts, serving on the university’s entertainment committee and appearing on stage in plays.

Deif rose through the Hamas ranks, developing the group’s tunnel network and bomb-making expertise. He has been at the top of Israel’s most wanted list for decades, accused of personally killing dozens of Israelis in suicide attacks.

Staying in the shadows has been a matter of life and death for Deif. According to Hamas reports, he lost an eye and had significant damage in one leg during one of Israel’s assassination attempts.

In 2014, an Israeli air strike murdered his wife, 7-month-old baby, and 3-year-old daughter.

His survival while leading Hamas’ armed branch has made him a Palestinian folk hero. In videos, he is either masked or only a shadow of himself is seen. According to a source close to Hamas, he does not utilise modern digital devices such as smart phones.

“He’s evasive. He is the one who lurks in the shadows.”