They call him the ghost, but he exists and he has proven it in these hours. Mohammed Diab al Masri, nicknamed Mohammed Deif, is the architect of the unprecedented attack on Israel. An operation prepared by a man who secretly transformed a handful of guerrillas into a fearsome formation.
The head of Hamas’s military wing, in his 50s, was born in Khan Younis, Gaza, and was able to study despite his family’s meager means. Biology, they say. And he also found a way to devote himself to theater as a young man, playing the role of Abu Khaled in a play called The Clown. Short brackets, small distractions from the real mission: that of a militant. He grew up under the wing of Yaya Hayyash, the engineer and suicide bombing coordinator in the mid-1990s, and when his mentor was killed, he took step by step to replace him.
His first specialty was taking hostages, an operation that was repeated on a large scale in the last few hours. They are pawns with high bargaining value, lives that need to be exchanged. He later devoted himself to building the faction’s arsenal. The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the spearhead of the movement, have moved from Kalashnikovs to drones and missiles. The network imported war materials through secret tunnels connected to Egyptian territory and was also the lifeblood of civilian supplies.
The Fedayeen hired Palestinians abroad to help them, they involved others in the Gaza Strip, they used the support of the Shiite Axis, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah. Constant coordination at the military and political levels. The two allies provided instructions, materials and parts while their instructors offered advice. Some projects are mirror images: The Shiite militia members wanted to occupy villages in the Upper Galilee, while their Palestinian brothers targeted kibbutzim on the border with Gaza. Much attention was paid to building bunkers and underground positions to prevent invasion or to drop bombs on the Jewish state.
The mind is always the focus. Israel gave him no reprieve. Jerusalem had requested Arafat’s arrest at the time and placed him in a residence monitored by the authorities for a certain period of time. Initiative of his neighbor and acquaintance Mohamed Dalhan, who was responsible for security for a long time. A stay of a few months that did not interrupt his career and made him the most wanted number one among Israelis. He tried to get him out in every possible way. From the sky with helicopter attacks on the cars that transported him – in 2001 and 2002 – with intruders, using spies.
The biographies report six to eight episodes of targeted killings, but he always escaped with serious injuries. No one is sure, but there are people who say he lost an eye and a hand or could barely walk due to the effects of a splinter. Others suspect greater damage, but nothing that would have affected its significance and status. In August 2014, his home was bombed, killing one of his wives and a daughter. Some of his employees also died, including number two Al Jabaari and the war material procurers in the Emirates, Tunisia and Malaysia who were murdered by the Mossad.
Tactical successes that, however, had no impact on the organized Ezzedine al Qassam to survive a possible beheading of the leaders. The constant hunt and the long experience of years of conflict forced him to take strict security measures.
There is only an old photo of him in circulation, no phone, just couriers and recorded messages posted on the Internet. In the first known audio recording from 2003, he promised his opponents: “Your life will be hell.” Twenty years later, he brutally proved it.