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Mossad abandoned a plan hatched in recent weeks to assassinate senior Hamas officials on Qatari soil using agents inside the country, two Israelis familiar with the decision-making told The Washington Post in a report Friday.
The two Israelis, who spoke to the American source on condition of anonymity, said that the intelligence agency's director, David Barnea, opposed the plan because of concerns about the future of the relationship Mossad had built with the Qataris, noting that Doha was brokering hostage deals between Israel and the terrorist organization.
One of the Israelis told the American source that, "this time, Mossad was not willing to do it on the ground," with the report referring to the assassination that killed then-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh when a bomb was planted in his room in Iran. The other anonymous Israeli said that "we could catch them in one, two or four years from now, and Mossad knows how to do it."
The Washington Post's exclusive report comes a day after a former senior official from the Israeli intelligence agency told radio station 103FM on Thursday that its indirect contact with Qatar may have led some of its officials to oppose Israel's Tuesday airstrikes on Doha.
"I hope not everyone has been 'supportive' when discussions are taking place," the former official had said.
Air or ground attacks?
The security agency's reservations about targeting terrorism officials in Doha likely influenced the operation to be carried out by fighter jets, rather than on the ground, the Washington Post report on Friday also assessed. A separate report from The Wall Street Journal that same day said that fighter jets carried out their strikes against Hamas officials in the Qatari capital from the Red Sea.
The terrorist organization said on Friday that its acting leader, Khalil al-Hayya, survived the attack.
The Washington Post report cited Israeli officials who said the Jewish state would repair relations with Qatar over time.
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