“Like Osama Bin Laden, people like that cannot live”: Israeli envoy’s prediction turns true on Hamas’ military leader Deif

New Delhi [India], August 1 (ANI): Israel’s Ambassador to India, Naor Gilon prophecy about one of the masterminds of Hamas’ October 7 attack – head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif came true on Thursday.

The Israeli army released a video on August 1 of an airstrike in Gaza that killed the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, last month in the southern Gaza Strip on July 13. The Israeli army said in a statement that fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Younis and the death of Deif was confirmed “following an intelligence assessment.” Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Israeli announcement.

Earlier, in an interview with ANI, the Israeli envoy had said, “Mohammad Deif escaped 4-5 times as we tried to kill him over the years, so we had to make sure this time, especially after October 7, it is the final one because he is the chief of staff of Hamas in a way and the symbol of what happened on October 7…”

Deif is believed to have survived multiple Israeli assassination attempts over the years, but each time he survived. On the morning of October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, Al Jazeera aired an audio recording message from Mohammed Deif in which he said that the attack was the beginning of the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ against Israel.

“I think, also from the practical capacity that he has, we have to make clear that he is like Osama Bin Laden, people like that cannot live in our world in no way, and I think, hopefully, he is dead, and the point is made clear,” he had predicted days earlier.

Israel’s confirmation regarding Deif comes a day after Hamas’ political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an attack in Iran’s capital, Tehran. While, a day earlier Hezbollah’s most senior military commander was killed in an Israeli strike on the Lebanese capital Beirut.

On being asked how Israel is trying to ensure minimisation of collateral damage, while trying to pinpoint Mohammad Deif, the envoy had said, “First of all, in general, the figures that we get of dead are the figures given by so-called Ministry of Health of Hamas in Gaza…so they have an interest in inflating numbers, and another element that is very important to know that this is the effect that for them everyone is civilians, they never differentiate between terrorists or fighters (whatever you call them) and between civilians, so from their point of view all the dead are civilians.”

He mentioned that Israel had ‘two of them on target, and not only Deif.’

“I remind you that at the beginning of the war, they tried to frame Israel for attacking a hospital, which afterwards we found out that it was a misfired rocket of their own,” Gilon said.

The Israeli army released a video on August 1 of an airstrike in Gaza that killed the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, last month.

The Israeli army said in a statement that fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Younis and the death of Deif was confirmed “following an intelligence assessment.” Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Israeli announcement.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on Thursday announced that Hamas military wing commander Mohammed Deif had been killed in an airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip on July 13.

In a post on X, IDF stated, “We can now confirm: Mohammed Deif was eliminated.”