Military strategist Mohammed Deif and political leader Yahya Sinwar have already spent time in Israeli or Palestinian jails and been the targets of multiple attempts to kill them.In the war of words leading up to the impending ground offensive, Israel has said that Sinwar is "a dead man walking" after Hamas fighters killed about 1,400 people and abducted more than 200 in the worst attacks suffered by Israel since its creation 75 years ago.
Sinwar was a founding member of Hamas in 1987 during the first Palestinian intifada or uprising and rose through the ranks as a fierce advocate of armed struggle.Sinwar was serving four life terms for the killing of two Israeli soldiers when in 2011 he became the most senior of 1,100 Palestinians released in exchange for French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
There is only one known full-face photo of the commander of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing. It is at least 20 years old. The others show him either in a mask or standing in the shadows to avoid identification. Deif's wife and at least one child were killed in an Israeli air strike during the 2014 Gaza war. Deif has reportedly lost one eye and been left disabled by the attempts on his life but it has not weakened his influence.
"Sinwar and Deif are clearly first priority leadership, the loss of which would damage Hamas, but one presumes that the group has contingencies about their loss," said H.A. Hellyer, an international security specialist at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
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