Role Model Par Excellence

"He's a role model for us. He's a legend for the children, for everyone in Gaza."
Ahmed, 32, Hamas security detail 

"The decision-maker in Hamas is Mohammed Deif leader of the military wing, and he is against the ceasefire because he believes every day they continue to fight is another achievement for them."
[retired] General Giora Eiland, Israel

"He's very quiet. He keeps a low profile and lives hidden among the population. He moves with different passports and different identities."
"He's successful until now because the circle around him is very small. That is why he is still alive."
Imad Falouji, co-founder of Al-Qassam Brigades, [former] senior Hamas leader

"What the air force and your artillery shelling has failed to accomplish will not be accomplished by ground forces."
"The Zionist entity will not know security unless the Palestinian people live in peace."
Mohammed Deif, Al-Aqsa network audio statement

Palestinian rescuers search for survivors under the rubble of a Hamas house in Gaza City in 2006. Mohammed Deif was wounded in the attack and operated on. Photo: AFP

Top commander of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and a co-founder, Deif is considered by Israeli military analysts to represent the key obstacle to a negotiated end to the conflict. Israel demands the complete demilitarization of Hamas before it will agree to any negotiated end to the current operation the IDF is undergoing in an effort to destroy all the tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel, as many of the Hamas leaders as it can put out of commission, and the destruction of the arms caches.

In previous agreements to bring such similar operations to an end, Hamas has used those interregnums as the opportunity to restock missiles, arms and rockets during a traditional 'hudna' where an interval is required in the Muslim tradition of warfare, to build up fighting conscripts and restock spent arms until such time as the opportunity is presented as right to once again attack an enemy. For Hamas, that enemy, write large, is the State of Israel.

Mohammed Deif is recognized as the inspiration behind the strategy of firing rockets at Israel and the building of tunnel networks where fighters can be enabled to infiltrate Israel. One such tunnel being put out of commission by the IDF was discovered to have three motorcycles parked within them, prepared for use by terrorists wanting to enter Israel quickly, commit their terrorist act, and swiftly depart. Other tunnels have been found with weapons at the ready.

Some military analysts feel that Mohammed Deif's real name is Mohammed al-Masri. He is said to be confined to a wheelchair, the result of an Israeli attack in 2006 that resulted in the loss of an eye and an arm, presumably among other injuries. In a poll taken months earlier by a Palestinian news website, Deif was voted more popular than Khaled Meshaal, the principal leader of Hamas and Ismael Haniyeh, the Gaza top political leader.

In this image made by video and released by Hamas in 2005, a man, identified as fugitive bomb maker Mohammed Deif, describes Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a victory for armed resistance and vowed to continue attacks on Israel until the Jewish state was erased from the map. Photo: AP

Mohammed Deif is hugely admired for his tough line toward Israel, thought of as an accurate reflection of the interests and demands of Palestinians When an audio statement was played on Hamas's Al-Aqsa network, showing Deif as a shadowy image seated in a chair, his declaration refusing a ceasefire in the absence of the lifting of the economic blockade and opening border crossings left Palestinians riveted to their television sets.

A former actor, the man studied science at the Islamic University of Gaza, becoming involved with the Islamist Hamas movement. A co-founder of the Al-Qassam Brigades, his grasp of weaponry and the art of guerrilla warfare helped Hamas to develop its military structure. He was dedicated to building Hamas's arsenal or weapons, and began the process of shielding himself from assassination.