ISRAEL raided and blitzed the house of Hamas's most wanted one-eyed military chief dubbed "The Guest" who has evaded assassination for decades.
Inside the terror lair, the IDF found Mohammed Deif's ID card - bringing them one step closer in their hunt for the elusive architect behind the October 7 attacks.
A man of infamy, terror and anonymity - Deif, 58, has long haunted the Gaza Strip as the commander of al-Qassam brigades, Hamas's military wing.
Deif - which means "The Guest" in Arabic - is a nod to his life spent on the run, moving through the darkness, staying with sympathisers and hiding in terror tunnels to evade Israeli assassins and air strikes.
Now Israel's military appears to be closing in on the terror boss as they ransacked and later destroyed his home, finding key evidence about the shadowy figure.
Documents contained copies of his ID card, printed in both Arabic and Hebrew, and information about the names and birth dates of his children.
During the raid, IDF troops also said they discovered a tunnel shaft in his garden where rocket launchers and other weapons were found.
Deif remains the man who Israel has been unable to kill after surviving seven assassination attempts.
There are only two existing decades-old photos of Deif - one of which is used on the newly-found ID card - and he has not been seen in public for decades.
He is believed to be one-eyed and wheelchair bound after have been seriously wounded in an Israeli strike in 2021.
However, an IDF report from earlier this week suggested the Hamas leader is in better physical condition than previously thought.
He was said to be walking around with nothing more than a slight limp.
Four attempts to kill the "The Guest" took place during Israel's "Operation Protective Edge" in 2014.
One strike hit a safe house he had been hunkering down in and allegedly killed his wife, Widad, and their infant son, Al - but Deif was not inside.
It comes as Israel's military claims to have blown up an "subterranean terrorist city" beneath Gaza's largest city.
Hundreds of metres long, it is believed to have served as the main compound for Hamas under Gaza City, close to al-Quds hospital, and where terror chiefs would have run operations.
Dramatic footage captured onboard an Israeli war dog shows the canine hunting down Hamas terrorists in their underground metropolis under Gaza City.
For 11 weeks, Israel's military has been pounding Gaza City - razing much of it to the ground in an attempt to root out Hamas and destroy their infrastructure.
Earlier this week, the IDF claimed to have secured control of the "Elite Quarter" where Hamas leaders operated.
It followed with aerial footage of a huge explosion across Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood that the IDF claim killed 600 terrorists as they destroyed a huge tunnel network.
Meanwhile, Israel ferociously pushes on with its offensive into the southern city of Khan Younis as they close in on Hamas's top brass, including "Gaza's Bin Laden", Yahya Sinwar.
Reports claim that the ruthless Hamas chief has escaped death twice this week, forcing him further underground to escape Israel's wrath.
It followed IDF officials telling The Sun that Hamas is using recordings of children crying "save me, save me!" to lure IDF troops into death traps.
srael, shielded by the US, has resisted international pressure to scale back its offensive and has said it would press on until Hamas's control of the Strip is over.
The military has said that months of fighting lie ahead in southern Gaza, an area densely packed with the majority of the enclave's 2.3 million people who earlier fled the fighting in the north.
With homes destroyed, they are living in crowded shelters and struggling to find food, fuel, water and medical supplies. Diseases are spreading, and communications have been repeatedly cut.
The Hamas-run health authorities in Gaza claim that over 20,000 have been killed since Israel began its relentless bombardment and invasion of the densely-populated enclave.
This includes 8,000 children and 6,200 women.
Last night, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution urging more aid for Gaza, but it fell short of a call for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
"Intensive" talks took place this week in Cairo to discuss a possible ceasefire agreement to secure the release of the last women, children and elderly men still held captive.
However, negotiations have ground to a halt as Hamas declared there will be no hostage deal until Israel ends its war in Gaza.
In a statement yesterday, the Iran-backed terror group said: "There is a Palestinian national decision that there should be no talk about prisoners or exchange deals except after a full cessation of aggression."
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