Wikipedia

The killing of the wife, daughter, and infant son of Mohammed Deif

(Redirected from Draft:The 2014 Deif family massacre)

See also: Extrajudicial killings in the Gaza Strip, Targeted killing by Israel, and List of Israeli assassinations

The Deif family massacre was one of many during the 2014 Gaza War and one of the only cases where the intended target is known. It is now also known that the strike did not hit the target, Mohammed Deif, the father of the family. In 2014, this strategy was allegedly only used on particularly high ranking members of so called "terrorist" organisations, but on the evening of 7 October 2023 the "Where's Daddy" strategy was expanded.

The killing of the wife, daughter, and infant son of Mohammed Deif
Location Gaza Strip, Palestine (The family home of Mohammed Deif)
DateAugust 2014 (2014-08)
TargetMohammed Deif
Attack type
English: Targeted killing
Hebrew: סיכול ממוקד, romanized: sikul memukad, lit. 'focused foiling'.[1][2]
Deaths3+
VictimsThe son, daughter, and wife of Mohammed Deif, and other members of the household.
Perpetrators Israel Defense Forces
Motive"an image of victory"[3]
AccusedAccused of being informants:
Mahmoud Ishtiwi[a][4]

Air strike

edit

Israel attempted to assassinate the chief commander of Hamas' military wing, Mohammad Deif, in an airstrike on his house in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, killing his wife and two children.[5][6] The strike on the family home killed a 7-month-old baby boy (Mohammed Deif's son, referred to at the funeral as "Ali Deif"), his 3-year-old sister, his 27 year old mother (Widad Asfoura, Mohammed Deif's second wife),[7] [8] and other members of the household. But the strike did not kill the intended target, Mohammed Deif. Israeli intelligence concluded in April 2015 that Deif had survived the assassination attempt, the fifth Israeli attempt to assassinate him.[9]

Funeral

edit

Several thousand people attended the funeral in Gaza got Deif's wife and son, angrily demanding revenge against Israel and firing shots into the air. The bodies of Widad and Ali were taken from the wife’s family home to a mosque in Jabaliya refugee camp for prayers, then laid to rest in the sand of a cemetery.[7] His daughter was not buried on the same day as her brother, because her body was not recovered from the rubble until the following day, two days after the strike.[10]

Criticism of the attempted assassination

edit

In addition to the rage in Gaza, some within Israel also criticised the strike. For example, Gideon Levy asked "What Would Israel Do in Hamas' Shoes?" in his opinion piece in Haaretz, asking how Israel would react if Hamas killed the wife and children of one of Israel's leaders.[3] Levy also pointed out that even if the assassination had been successful, based on past successful strikes on Ahmad Yassin and others, Deif would have been replaced and not by someone more moderate.[3]

Summary executions

edit
See also: Capital punishment in the Gaza Strip
This section is an excerpt from Extrajudicial killings in the Gaza Strip § Summary executions by Al Qassam in 2014.[edit]

The day after Israel killed the wife and two young children of Mohammed Deif - and assassinated three Hamas military leaders - the Qassam Brigades suddenly executed 18 suspected collaborators in Gaza.[11] Some were on trial for espionage, but those trials were suddenly cut short. From among the executed, 6 were killed by a firing squad outside a mosque in front of hundreds of spectators including children.[12]

According to an Amnesty International report, during the 2014 Gaza War,[13][14] Hamas[b] executed 23 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.[15] Amnesty International reported that, most were executed by militants during the 2014 conflict, and 16 of them imprisoned from before the war began.[16][17] Amnesty International claimed that "Hamas"[b] used the cover of the war, which had a very heavily death toll,[13] to carry out summary executions, to settle scores against opponents under the pretext they were collaborators with Israel.[12][15] In 2015 they were accused of torture.[14]

Other alleged informants

edit
See also: Capital punishment in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Eshtewi, and Capital punishment for homosexuality § Palestine

The killing of suspected informants may not have stopped after the end in the 2014 war. Some sources say that the first thing Mahmoud Ishtiwi was accused of, when he was arrested in January 2015, was giving Israel the location of Deif’s family residence, leading to this strike.[4] However, Ishtiwi was also accused of multiple other transgressions, including the embezzlement of 6 million USD from the Qassam Brigades weapons funds.[18]

Anouncing operation Al Aqsa Flood

edit
See also: Israel–Hamas war § Hamas' motives

In his pre-dawm recorded speech on 7 October 2023, Deif criticised the occupation for violence against children and women, and listed it the reasons for launching the attacks, but he did not specifically mention his personal experience.[19][20][21]

"The Zionist entity has occupied our land, driven out our people, destroyed our cities, our towns and our villages, committed hundreds of massacres against our people, killing children, women and the elderly, and buried innocent, peaceful people under the rubble of their homes, in contemptuous violation of all international norms and human rights and rejecting international laws." - Mohammed Deif.[21][19]

Expansion of the strategy of targeting family homes

edit
Main article: AI-assisted targeting in the Gaza Strip

In 2014, the strategy of bombing family homes was allegedly only used on particularly high ranking members of so called "terrorist" organisations. But on the evening of 7 October 2023 the "Where's Daddy" strategy was expanded to include even the lowest ranking militants, 37,000 men were listed for execution, and 15 or more civilians were allocated as allowable collateral damage for each executed target.[22][23][24]

On 7 October 2023 this strategy was suddenly expanded to include even the lowest reasoning suspected militants in the Gaza Strip. An AI generated list of 37,000 individuals suspected of being merely "linked to Hamas" allegedly became a kill list.[25]

During the same war, family homes were also hit in Southern Lebanon, in a residential area of Bint Jbeil. Killing two brothers Ali Ahmed Bazzi (30) and Ibrahim Bazzi (27), and Ibrahim's wife Shorouq Hammond.[26] The brothers are both Australian citizens, Ali lived locally but Ibrahim was visiting from Sydney to bring his wife home to Australia.[26] Hezbollah claimed Ali as one of their fighters, and also included the civilian family members in a Hezbollah funeral.[26][27]

See also

edit

Notes

edit
  1. ^ Also spelled Mahmoud Eshtewi.
  2. ^ a b c "Hamas" could refer to either the civilian government of the Gaza Strip from 2006 to 2024, or the Qassam Brigades, or both.

References

edit
  1. ^ "בג"ץ 769/02" (in Hebrew). Archived from the original on 4 January 2007. Retrieved 5 February 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. ^ Otto, Roland (2011). Targeted Killings and International Law. ISBN 9783642248580.
  3. ^ a b c Levy, Gideon (2014). "What Would Israel Do in Hamas' Shoes?". Haaretz. Retrieved 19 June 2024.
  4. ^ a b Levi, Elior (7 February 2016). "Hamas executes member who may have betrayed Deif's location". Ynetnews. Retrieved 17 June 2024.
  5. ^ "Gaza war rages on, Hamas says Israel tried to kill its military chief". Reuters. 20 August 2014.
  6. ^ "Body of Deif's daughter, 3, pulled from Gaza rubble". The Daily Star Newspaper – Lebanon. Archived from the original on 21 August 2014. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
  7. ^ a b "Gaza: Thousand mourn death of Hamas chief's wife, baby son". Firstpost. 20 August 2014. Retrieved 14 May 2024.
  8. ^ "Terror chief Deif's mother-in-law offers him her other daughters". Times of Israel. 24 August 2014. Retrieved 8 June 2024. "Should Deif request the hand of any of my other daughters, I will happily consent and even if she, too, is martyred I will consent to the third. It is an honor to have Deif a husband to any of my daughters and be a father to their children." - Zeian Asfura, (mother of Widad Deif)
  9. ^ 'Hamas's chief of staff alive and active, Israel confirms,' The Times of Israel 29 April 2015.
  10. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20140821231613/http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Aug-21/267987-body-of-deifs-daughter-3-pulled-from-gaza-rubble.ashx#axzz3B22Iezk2
  11. ^ Gold, Shabtai (22 August 2014). "Hamas executes 18 'collaborators' in Gaza". Haaretz. Retrieved 14 June 2024.
  12. ^ a b "Gaza: Palestinians tortured, summarily killed by Hamas forces during 2014 conflict". Amnesty International. 27 May 2015. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  13. ^ a b "PHOTOS: The Gaza families obliterated in just 51 days". +972 Magazine. 26 August 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2024.
  14. ^ a b Kershner, Isabel (27 May 2015). "Hamas accused of killing and torturing Palestinians". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 9 June 2024.
  15. ^ a b Beaumont, Peter (27 May 2015). "Hamas executed 23 Palestinians under cover of Gaza conflict, says Amnesty". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  16. ^ "Hamas tortured and killed Palestinian 'collaborators' during Gaza conflict - new report". Amnesty International. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  17. ^ "'Strangling Necks': Abduction, torture and summary killings of Palestinians by Hamas forces during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict" (PDF). Amnesty International. p. 5, 15, 19. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  18. ^ the source is in the Arabic Wikipedia article on Ishtiwi
  19. ^ a b "خطاب "طوفان الأقصى"". مؤسسة الدراسات الفلسطينية (Institute for Palestine Studies) (in Arabic). Institute for Palestine Studies. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  20. ^ Abridged version in English: "Statement by Al-Qassam Brigades Chief of Staff Mohammed Deif". Ezzedeen AL-Qassam Brigades (English). EQB Information Office. Retrieved 12 April 2024. The Zionist colonial occupation has occupied our Palestinian homeland, displaced our people, destroyed our towns and villages, perpetrated hundreds of massacres against our people, killing children, women, and elderly people and demolished homes with their inhabitants inside, in violation of all international norms and laws and human rights conventions.
  21. ^ a b "We announce the start of the al-Aqsa Flood". Fondazione Internazionale Oasis. 13 December 2023. Retrieved 31 March 2024. The Zionist entity has occupied our land, driven out our people, destroyed our cities, our towns and our villages, committed hundreds of massacres against our people, killing children, women and the elderly, and buried innocent, peaceful people under the rubble of their homes, in contemptuous violation of all international norms and human rights and rejecting international laws. We warned the leaders of the occupation not to persist in their crimes and we appealed to world leaders to take action to end the occupiers' crimes against our holy things, our people, our detainees and our land, and to compel the occupiers to abide by international law and resolutions. But the leaders of the occupation have not heeded us, nor have the world leaders taken action.
  22. ^ Iraqi, Amjad (3 April 2024). "'Lavender': The AI machine directing Israel's bombing spree in Gaza". +972 Magazine. Retrieved 23 June 2024.
  23. ^ Tharoor, Ishaan (5 April 2024). "Analysis | Israel offers a glimpse into the terrifying world of military AI". Washington Post. Retrieved 23 June 2024.
  24. ^ Samuel, Sigal (8 May 2024). "Some say AI will make war more humane. Israel's war in Gaza shows the opposite". Vox. Retrieved 23 June 2024.
  25. ^ McKernan, Bethan; Davies, Harry (3 April 2024). "'The machine did it coldly': Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets". The Guardian.
  26. ^ a b c Dyett, Greg (28 December 2023). "Australian man, his wife and brother killed in air strike". SBS News. Retrieved 26 June 2024. Local media in Lebanon says an Israeli war plane fired a missile at a number of homes in Lebanon's Bint Jbei area. A missile strike killed 27-year-old Ibraham Bazzi, his brother Ali Bazzi and Ibrahim's wife Shorouk Hammond. Ms Hammoud had recently acquired an Australian visa and she and her husband Ibrahim were planning a life in Australia. Afif Bazzi (Mayor of Bint Jbeil): "It was a surprise that the Israelis hit a civilian neighbourhood, people are living normally, they have not fled. We did not flee Bint Jbeil, all residents are still in Bint Jbeil. We hear the bombardment and the shelling but it was still far away, the town was neutral but we were surprised that a civilian neighbourhood was hit, civilians, a groom who came from Australia to take his bride. They were spending time together along with his brother at his brother’s house, really it was a surprise for us." (translation by SBS World News)
  27. ^ "2 Australians, including suspected Hezbollah fighter, killed in IDF strike in Lebanon" (in em). 28 December 2023. Retrieved 28 June 2024.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
 

This crime-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

 

This Palestinian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

 

This military-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

 

This article about the region of Palestine is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

 

This death-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_killing_of_the_wife,_daughter,_and_infant_son_of_Mohammed_Deif&oldid=1231386248"