What has happened to Hamas’s most prominent leaders?

Mohammed Deif was the head of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of the Hamas movement. He was Israel’s most wanted man for decades, and was killed in an Israeli air strike last month, Israel says. Hamas has not confirmed this.

Deif, a shadowy figure, became known to Palestinians as The Mastermind, and to Israelis as The Cat with Nine Lives.

Israeli authorities imprisoned him in 1989 during the first Palestinian intifada (uprising), and released him after a year and half. Soon afterwards he formed the al-Qassam Brigades, with the aim of capturing Israeli soldiers.

He also helped engineer the construction of tunnels that enabled Hamas fighters to get inside Israel from Gaza.

Deif was accused by Israel of planning and supervising bus bombings which killed tens of Israelis in 1996, and of involvement in the capture and killing of three Israeli soldiers in the mid-1990s. He was arrested by the Palestinian Authority in 2000, but escaped seven months later at the beginning of the second intifada.

He became Israel’s most wanted man, but since then left behind little trace.

The most serious assassination attempts on his life were in 2002: Deif survived but lost one of his eyes. Israel says he also lost a foot and a hand, and was left with difficulty speaking.

Israel tried and failed again to assassinate Deif during a 2014 assault on the Gaza Strip, but killed his wife and two of his children.

Deif was one of the figures accused of planning the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October, 2023. Israel said it killed him in an air strike on a compound in the Khan Younis area of Gaza on 13 July.