If Israel killed Deif, it would be the nail in Hamas’s coffin - analysis

About a whole day after news first broke that the IDF may have assassinated Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military chief, there remain two contrary vectors on the story.

On the one hand, the IDF, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Service), and other defense officials tried to set a tone as if Deif was dead. Shin Bet Chief Ronen Bar and IDF Southern Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Yaron Finkleman did a joint victory lap through Rafah discussing how important the targeted killing was – a sign they believed they hit their target.

Likewise, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi was expected to make a public declaration that would also address the attack on Deif.

Some details have since dripped out of the Shin Bet having had multiple confirmations that Deif was present at the site of the attack, and in terms of the large size of the munition that would not have allowed for his survival.

Additionally, there were Israeli views that Deif had come out of the tunnels either to get a breather, given many health problems he has with staying in tunnels for an indefinite period, while others said that he had come out thinking that hostage negotiations would give him a certain temporary level of immunity.

Further, there was visual intelligence coverage of the scene before, during, and after the strike, and there was no indication that Deif had left.

However, no one has produced a dead body, and it is unclear whether such a large bomb and so many killed Palestinians will present an opportunity to find such an identifiable one.

Add to this the fact that Deif was struck physically by the IDF multiple times, but survived anyway and that Hamas did not merely stay quiet on the issue, but sent out multiple detailed and extended denials, and the picture remains murky.

Hamas's denial a sign of embarrassment?

On the Israeli side, the tendency was to view Hamas’s denials with condescension as covering up how embarrassed they were at a crucial point in the hostage-ceasefire negotiations.

There were also mixed messages put out by Hamas, with some saying that Israel’s “aggression” meant a freeze in the talks, while others said that Hamas was pressing on with the talks to expose that it is really Israel who does not want a deal. Former IDF intelligence analysis chief Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser said that if Deif was killed, it could lead to an even greater strategic impact than the killing of arch-terrorists like Hezbollah’s military commander Imad Mughniyeh in 2008 or Iran’s global spy chief Qasem Soleimani in 2020.

Kuperwasser explained that many top terrorist leaders have been killed over the years and that also some are easily replaced while others are harder to replace, just about every terrorist gets replaced eventually, even if by someone less talented.

What is different in the case of Deif, said Kuperwasser, is that Hamas has currently lost control over its base physical territory and is in danger of being permanently reduced to a much more fledging and small terror group from one that once dominated the lives of 2.3 million Gazans.

Put differently, it is the combination of him being Hamas’s military mastermind and the terror groups’ desperate and pressing need to rebuild its military structure that could strategically doom a Hamas comeback.

On October 7, Hamas organized Gaza into 24 distinct battalions, each one with a separate geographic responsibility, its own weapons and supplies, and its own communications, intelligence, and tunnel networks.

Depending on different estimates, Hamas has lost anywhere from 60-80% of its forces during this war, the vast majority of its battalion commanders, three of its five brigade commanders for all of Gaza, and most of its top rocket and drone commanders.

In that context, Deif would have been more important than ever as someone who could retrain and reshape a new generation of commanders into a wider strategy and fabric.

Hamas now may lack such an experienced military master strategist, and Deif’s two closest deputies are also dead.

Expectations are that Mohammed Sinwar, Gaza Chief Yahya Sinwar’s brother, will take over if Deif is indeed dead, but he is not viewed as anywhere near as talented even with a built army, let alone where he would need to rebuild Hamas as a national military.

If Hamas fails to rebuild its military network beyond being a guerrilla terror group, it will also fail to return to constitute anywhere near the threat that it threatened Israel with for the last 15 years since it took control of Gaza.

Former IDF intelligence chief and current INSS Director Tamir Hayman defended the killing of Deif despite the potential risk it could pose to the hostage-ceasefire negotiations.

For months, he strongly supported cutting a deal with Hamas for hostages, even at the price of indefinitely freezing the war.

However, Hayman explained that killing someone at the level of Deif, the man who masterminded all of the military tactics behind the October 7 invasion, was a crucial strategic imperative, standing on its own regardless of its other impacts.

Also, he did believe that it was possible that over time, if Deif was killed, Hamas’s remaining leadership, which is shrinking increasingly, would be more amenable to returning Israeli hostages in order to at least temporarily halt their being hunted.

Much of the situation surrounding Deif is still clouded by a haze of questions.

But the strike on Saturday could eventually be looked back on as one of the critical strategic moments – not only of the war but of the competing visions to reshape the post-war order in the region.