Opinion | Ehud Olmert’s Missed Shot at Hamas

As Israel seeks to “decapitate” Hamas by killing or capturing its leaders, a former Israeli prime minister told me he had to pass up an opportunity to do so in 2007.

On June 25 of that year, Ehud Olmert recalled in a phone interview, he took a call from his top security official who said Israel had located a house in Gaza where Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s military commander, and 10 other top Hamas leaders were meeting. “An Israeli F-16 fighter jet was in the air with 1,000 kilos of explosives and missiles,” Mr. Olmert said. “All I had to do was OK the hit.”