Hamas military chief killed in air strike, Israel says

By Tom Bennett, Aug 1: Israel's military says it has confirmed that Hamas's military chief Mohammed Deif was killed in an air strike in the Gaza Strip last month.

Deif was targeted in the strike on a compound in the Khan Younis area on 13 July. Hamas is yet to confirm his death.

Israel says Deif was one of the figures responsible for planning the 7 October attacks in southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed.

Israel's announcement comes after the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismael Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran, and senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

A statement from the Israeli military said that "following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated" in the 13 July strike.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health authorities said at the time that the air strike had killed more than 90 people, but denied that Deif was among the dead.

Mohammed Deif was head of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Hamas movement.

He was imprisoned by Israeli authorities in 1989, after which he formed the Brigades with the aim of capturing Israeli soldiers.

Israel accused him of planning and supervising bus bombings which killed tens of Israelis in 1996, and of involvement in the capture and killing of three Israeli soldiers in the mid-1990s.

He is also known to have helped engineer the construction of tunnels that have allowed Hamas fighters to get inside Israel from Gaza.