TEL AVIV — It may take weeks or even months to ascertain whether Israel’s July 13 bombing of a southern Gaza compound killed its intended target, Hamas’ elusive military chief Mohammed Deif, but despite denials by Hamas, Israeli security officials are convinced that Deif is no longer alive.
"We know for surea that it was impossible to leave this compound alive in light of the armament that was dropped,” a senior Israeli military source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “And we know that his associate and right-hand man — Khan Younis Brigade commander Rafa Salama, who was with him — was killed in the bombing. We cautiously surmise that this time he did not evade us as he did the previous seven times."
The bombing, which according to reports took the lives of at least 90 Palestinians, including dozens of women and children, targeted a compound belonging to Rafa Salama's family, located between the town of Khan Younis and the coastal town of al-Mawasi to its west. Israel knew that the Khan Younis Brigade commander, shown with Deif in an undated photo Israel issued after the bombing raid, occasionally emerges from his hideout in one of the Hamas tunnels to a compound his family keeps nearby. The Israeli surveillance of Salama was based on an assessment that Deif joins him from time to time.
But even as Israel seeks proof of Deif’s demise, its representatives are working in secret with the United States on the next step — a plan to hand over control of the Gaza Strip to a multinational force led by the United Arab Emirates. The complex plan, along with Deif’s hoped-for death, would allow Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare victory over Hamas when he addresses a joint session of Congress July 24.
