Hamas commander Mohammed Deif has been assassinated in an airstrike, the Israeli military revealed today, a day after group leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran.

'IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,' the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement today.

The one-eyed Hamas commander was allegedly killed on July 13, confirmed Thursday after Hamas' political chief was killed by an 'airborne projectile' in Tehran. Israel did not immediately claim responsibility for Haniyeh's death.

Deif is believed to have been responsible for planning and executing the bloody October 7 incursion into Israel, in which Hamas members and their allies killed some 1,200 Israelis and took some 240 hostage.

Deif, also known as Abu Khaled, was by far Israel's most wanted target in Gaza. 

Israel had tried to kill him five times - in 2001, 2002, 2006, 2014 and in May 2021. 

The attempts saw both of his legs and an arm blown off and his wife and two children killed.

Amid the ongoing war in Gaza, Israel targeted Deif in a strike on July 13 that hit a compound on the outskirts of the city of Khan Younis, but there had been no immediate confirmation he was killed.

More than 90 other people, including displaced civilians in nearby tents, were killed in the strike, Gaza health officials said at the time.

One of the founders of Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, in the 1990s, the former bombmaker had led the unit for decades.

Under his command, it carried out dozens of suicide bombings against Israelis on buses and at cafes and built up a formidable arsenal of rockets that could strike deep into Israel.