Israel has described last week’s devastating attack by Hamas as a 9/11-like moment. The secret mastermind behind the attack, Palestinian terrorist Mohammed Deif, calls it the Al Aqsa flood.
The phrase Israel’s most wanted man was used in an audio tape broadcast on Saturday when Hamas fired thousands of rockets from the Gaza Strip, indicating that the attack was retaliation for the Israeli raid on Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque.
According to a source close to Hamas in Gaza, in May 2021, following a raid on Islam’s third holiest site that angered the Arab and Muslim world, Deaf began planning the operation that would involve Israel. More than 1,200 people were killed.
“It started with scenes and footage of Israel attacking the Al Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, beating worshippers, attacking them, dragging elders and youth out of the mosque,” the source said. “All this has fueled and stoked anger.”
The attack on the mosque compound, long a center of violence in Jerusalem over matters of sovereignty and religion, helped trigger an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas.
More than two years later, Saturday’s attack, the worst breach of Israeli security since the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict, forced Israel to declare war and launch a retaliatory attack on Gaza, killing 800 as of Tuesday. More than 100,000 people were killed.
A survivor of seven Israeli assassination attempts, the most recent in 2021, Defoe rarely speaks and never appears in public. So when Hamas’s TV channel announced he was to speak on Saturday, Palestinians knew something important was about to happen.
“Today the anger of Al Aqsa, the anger of our people and the nation is bursting. Our mujahideen (fighters), today is your day to convince this criminal that his time is up,” Deif said in the recording.
There are only three images of Deif: one in his 20s, another of him masked, and an image of his shadow, which was used when the audio tape was broadcast.
Deif’s whereabouts are unknown, although he is most likely in the maze of tunnels beneath the enclave in Gaza. An Israeli security source said that Def was directly involved in the planning and operational aspects of the attack.