How secretive Hamas commander masterminded attack on Israel dubbed ‘Al Aqsa Flood’
- Palestinian militant Mohammed Deif is the secretive chief of the Hamas military wing in Gaza
- It took two years to plan Saturday’s assault, which was named after Israeli raids on Al Aqsa mosque
The phrase Israel’s most wanted man used in an audio tape broadcast as Hamas fired thousands of rockets out of the Gaza strip on Saturday signalled the attack was payback for Israeli raids at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque.
It was in May 2021, after a raid on Islam’s third holiest site that enraged the Arab and Muslim world, when Deif began planning the operation that has killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, according to a source close to Hamas in Gaza.
“It was triggered by scenes and footage of Israel storming Al Aqsa mosque during Ramadan, beating worshippers, attacking them, dragging elderly and young men out of the mosque,” the source said. “All this fuelled and ignited the anger.”
That storming of the mosque compound, long a flashpoint for violence over matters of sovereignty and religion in Jerusalem, helped set off 11 days of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
More than two years on, Saturday’s assault, the worst breach in Israeli defences since the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict, pushed Israel to declare war and launch retaliatory strikes on Gaza that had killed more than 900 people by Tuesday.