The military head of "Hamas" in Gaza Mohammed Deif was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Khan Younis area on July 13 following an intelligence assessment, the Israeli military said, Reuters reported. The agency notes that the elusive Deif survived seven assassination attempts by Israel.
Deif is believed to have been one of the organizers of the attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 last year, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip, now in its tenth month.
Here is a list of Palestinian leaders and functionaries targeted by the most powerful and sophisticated military in the Middle East.
Yahia Ayash
An elusive Islamic militant leader behind a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings dubbed "The Engineer" has been killed in the then-PLO-ruled Gaza Strip. He died on January 5, 1996, when his cell phone exploded in his hands.
Khaled Meshaal
The former leader of "Hamas" Khaled Meshaal became famous around the world in 1997 after Israeli agents injected him with poison on the street outside his office in the Jordanian capital of Amman.
Ahmed Yasin
Israel killed the co-founder and spiritual leader of "Hamas" Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in a helicopter missile strike on March 22, 2004, as he left a mosque in Gaza City. Israel also tried unsuccessfully to kill him in 2003 when he was at the home of a member of "Hamas" in the Gaza Strip.
Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi
On April 17, 2004, Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi was killed in an Israeli helicopter missile attack on a vehicle in Gaza City. Two of his bodyguards were also killed.
Adnan al Ghul
The main assassin of "Hamas" Adnan al-Ghul was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 21, 2004. Ghul was the second-in-command in the military wing of Hamas.
Nizar Rayan
A cleric, considered one of the most hard-line political leaders of Hamas, had called for renewed suicide bombings in Israel. Two of his four wives and seven of his children were killed in a bomb attack in the Jabalia refugee camp on January 1, 2009.
Saleh al-Aruri
An Israeli drone strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on January 2, 2024 killed Saleh al-Aruri, deputy leader of "Hamas" and founder of the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement - the "Izzedine al-Qassam" brigades.
Ismail Hania
In the early hours of yesterday, Ismail Haniya was killed in Iran, the Palestinian Islamist movement announced. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed Haniya's death hours after he attended the swearing-in ceremony of Iran's new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.