Deif’s Assassination Attempt in Gaza Took Weeks of Close Surveillance

Palestinians search for bodies and survivors in a site hit by an Israeli bombardment on Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians search for bodies and survivors in a site hit by an Israeli bombardment on Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
TT

Deif’s Assassination Attempt in Gaza Took Weeks of Close Surveillance

Palestinians search for bodies and survivors in a site hit by an Israeli bombardment on Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians search for bodies and survivors in a site hit by an Israeli bombardment on Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

For weeks, Israel kept watch on a palm-tree-dotted villa in southern Gaza where it believed a top Hamas lieutenant was staying with his family, but it held off on a strike, according to three senior Israeli defense officials.

The Israelis had a bigger target in mind: Muhammad Deif, the elusive leader of Hamas’s military wing, according to a report published by The New York Times on Monday.

The officials said that on Saturday, after learning that Deif appeared to be at the villa, the Israeli government sent in fighter jets that devastated the compound and killed dozens of Palestinians in the area around it.

The Israeli army and the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, said on Sunday that the strike had killed the lieutenant, Rafa Salameh.

But the fate of Deif, who is second in command of Hamas and considered an architect of its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, remained unclear.

The Israeli government also defended the decision to order the strike — which the officials said used at least five US-made precision-guided bombs — in an area Israel itself has designated a humanitarian zone for Palestinians driven from their homes by the war between Israel and Hamas.

The strike was authorized after prolonged observation of the villa, one of Salameh’s secret command posts, according to the three senior Israeli officials.

The villa is in an area known as Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis near the Mediterranean Sea.

It belonged to Salameh’s family, two of the officials said, and Salameh began spending more time there in recent months after Israeli forces overran many of his other strongholds in Khan Younis, both above and below ground, according to two of the officials.

Salameh still spent much of his time in Hamas’s underground tunnel network, but he also stayed regularly at the villa, along with his family and other militants, to escape the stifling conditions in the tunnels, the officials said.

Officers from an Israeli unit that oversees the identification of high-value targets, staffed by operatives from military intelligence and the Shin Bet, detected Salameh’s presence several weeks ago, the officials said.

But, they added, Israeli leaders decided to delay any attempts to kill him to see if he would be joined at some point by Deif.

Earlier assassination attempts against Deif are believed to have left him disabled, and he may be missing an eye and limbs. The Israeli military believes that he has developed health problems that force him to spend more time than other Hamas leaders do above ground, outside the tunnel network, the officials said.

On Friday, Israeli intelligence officers received information suggesting that Deif had appeared at the villa, the officials said. The news was sent up the chain of command to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who signed off on the strike, he said.

When the military received further indications of Deif’s presence after 10 a.m. on Saturday, it sent in the jets. It also launched an additional airstrike near emergency responders, videos and photographs reviewed by The New York Times show.

At least 90 people were killed, about half of them women and children, and 300 were wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Reports from the Gaza Strip described hospitals overwhelmed by injured Palestinians.

A Hamas official suggested on Sunday that Deif remained very much alive.

Netanyahu himself, in a televised news conference on Saturday night, said there was still no “absolute certainty” that Deif had been killed.



Lebanese Govt. to Seek New IMF Program, Policy Statement Says

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas//File Photo
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas//File Photo
TT

Lebanese Govt. to Seek New IMF Program, Policy Statement Says

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas//File Photo
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) logo is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas//File Photo

Lebanon's new government will negotiate with the International Monetary Fund for a new program and will work to deal with the country's financial default and public debt, according to a policy statement approved by the cabinet late on Monday.

The statement, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, said the government would work for an economical revival that could only be achieved through restructuring the banking sector.

Lebanon has been in deep economic crisis since 2019, when its financial system collapsed under the weight of massive state debts, prompting a sovereign default in 2020 and freezing ordinary depositors out of their savings in the banking system.

Beirut reached a draft funding deal with IMF in 2022 - contingent on reforms that authorities failed to deliver.

Finance Minister Yassine Jaber, who took office as part of a new government agreed earlier this month, told Reuters an IMF mission is expected to visit Lebanon in March.

Jaber said he had met the IMF's resident representative in Lebanon, Frederico Lima, and confirmed that the government plans to move ahead with reforms.

Lebanon's political landscape has been turned on its head since the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, long a dominant player in Lebanese politics, was badly pummelled in last year's war with Israel.

Reflecting the shift in the power balance, the government policy statement did not include language used in previous years that was seen to legitimize a role for Hezbollah in defending Lebanon, saying instead "we want a state that has the decision of war and peace".

The statement said it was required to adopt a national security strategy and a foreign policy that works to 'neutralize' Lebanon from conflicts.

In the field of energy, the Lebanese government will seek to resume work in oil and gas exploration, according to the cabinet statement. It said the government planned to establish a Ministry of Technology and Artificial Intelligence.

With a new administration in neighboring Syria, the statement said the Lebanese government believed it has an opportunity to start a serious dialogue aimed at controlling and demarcating the borders and working to resolve the issue of displaced Syrians in Lebanon.