He survived by the skin of his teeth again: New details about the attempts to eliminate Muhammad Daf

May 19, 2021   

'Hamas 'Chief of Staff' Muhammad Daif, the number 1 wanted, who ordered the rocket fire on Jerusalem last week - the fire that launched Operation 'Guardian of the Walls', has managed to evade assassination attempts twice in recent days. This is after Israel tried to assassinate him four other times in the past, without success. According to a report by Nir Davuri on Channel 12, in one of the assassination attempts, which was the sixth in number, Daif managed to evade the air force bombs at the very last moment. From the moment the shooting at the Israeli capital took place last Monday, he went underground, hiding, and moving between different families - and makes sure not to sleep in the same bed every night. Daif jumps from place to place under the cover of civilians and aides who help him move between the different places - which leads to the fact that they are unable to lay a hand on him. However, the security establishment is following and watching him and other senior Hamas officials - and it could be that the decision to allow the publication of the failed assassination attempts is an attempt to disrupt Something within the well-oiled system that protects him and tries to catch him at the last minute. Musa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, said today that Israel tried to eliminate Marwan Issa - deputy commander of the military wing, Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Deif. All were unharmed and are in good condition, he said. In an interview with Channel 12, MK Avi Dichter, former head of the Shin Bet, said: "There were two major misses in the attempt to catch Muhammad Deif. The first, back in January 1996, the day when the master murderer known as 'the engineer' Yahya Ayash was eliminated. There was an exceptional opportunity at the time - Deif was in the crosshairs, but the political echelon did not approve at the last minute to hit him. The period was three years after the Oslo Accords, two years after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, there was hope for peace - in retrospect, this was a serious mistake. We could have hit him then, without a doubt. "The second attempt was when I was head of the Shin Bet. The entire Hamas leadership gathered in the building - in a way that had never happened before or since - for the launch of Operation Defensive Shield. The decision was made to drop a one-ton bomb on the building, and all the senior officials came to the meeting. At the last minute, the IDF got cold feet for fear of hitting innocent people. In the end, we only attacked one floor inside the building, they weren't there at all. We haven't been able to catch Muhammad Deif since then. "The problem with the missed assassinations is not operational frustration, but the fact that they continued to create terror and murder Israelis. "All of Muhammad Deif's greatness and heroism is in the murder of innocents - whether through suicide bombers or by launching rockets." Dichter noted that the entire opening quartet of Hamas for his generations - Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Muhammad Deif - all originally came from the city of Ashkelon, which was severely attacked in the latest operation. "Hamas is an entire organization made up of refugees who became master murderers. After we parted ways with Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, everyone else knows - I would not recommend any insurance agency to take the risk and insure this group.".