January 31, 2025
By Nasser Kandil
• In a statement mourning several of its leaders martyred during the al-Aqsa Flood war, Hamas confirmed the martyrdom of Mohammed Deif, the commander of the al-Qassam Brigades. Alongside the martyred leader Yahya Sinwar, Deif formed a duo that reshaped the course of military resistance in Gaza. Under their leadership, al-Qassam evolved into a cornerstone for shaping Hamas’s policies and a pillar of its political direction, rooted in the principle that the movement is, above all, a resistance organisation – not a political party seeking power. Their stance against the Palestinian Authority was never a rivalry over governance in Gaza or the West Bank but rather a rejection of a political path that abandoned the fundamental quest for liberation. Their opposition to the Palestinian Authority stemmed from the conviction that the negotiation path was futile and that the Oslo Accords had only served to mask settlement expansion and create security forces wielded by the occupation against the resistance. Hamas, in contrast, remained committed to the path of resistance, willing to engage in national unity efforts only through this lens, even at the cost of making political concessions to secure agreements that upheld resistance as the central principle.
• Those who knew Sinwar and Deif closely, both of whom were former prisoners who had spent years inside Israeli jails and understood the entity from within, attest to their deep trust in each other’s judgment and leadership. Deif took charge of building al-Qassam’s military strength after the martyrdom of Yahya Ayyash, while Sinwar, before his imprisonment, had played a key role in establishing the resistance’s security apparatus, which he resumed overseeing after his release. The al-Aqsa Flood was, in many ways, a direct product of their cooperation and the profound trust that made such collaboration possible.
• Mohammed Deif was the military architect of the flood and led the battle in Gaza until his likely martyrdom, which appears to have preceded Sinwar’s. It is probable that, after the martyrdom of both Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif, Sinwar assumed both political and military leadership until his own martyrdom.
• Deif’s name is now etched into the Arab world’s honour roll as an extraordinary commander who conceived and executed one of the most complex military-security operations in modern history – October 7, 2023 – a battle whose strategic planning will undoubtedly be studied in war colleges.
• For Palestinians, for Hamas, and for the al-Qassam Brigades, pride in this legendary leader is well deserved. He has become an icon, akin to General Vo Nguyen Giap in the history of the Vietnamese revolution.
