Almost like the goal isn't taking out Hamas leadership. Hmmm...

Israel loves Hamas. Let's them justify their persecution of the Palestinians and the ongoing genocide. They don't want to end Hamas until after they end the Palestinians. That way they get more land to colonize.

Because it's a genocide. The point isn't to just take out Hamas and say "mission accomplished", it's to take out the entirety of Palestine and say "we tried our best to save them". Hamas has to continue existing in order for Israel to keep justifying every extension to this war.

Because Israel's goal is the kill all Palestinians. According to the 3000 year old fairy tales they believe in, anyone who is not an Israelite must be killed driven off from their promised land.

Israel is a religious theocracy run by crazy genodical maniacs.

The goal is not to eliminate Hamas. The goal is to depopulate Gaza.

The goal is not to destroy Hamas. This is a ridiculous excuse. Their true objective is to remove all the Palestinians from their homes, so they can occupy the land. iSSrael is a fascist, imperialist actor that tries to manipulate everyone through propaganda distributed through international media.

Because the genocide is the point.

Israeli leadership have admitted to funding Hamas' displacement of the secular moderates with predictable results - the only credible explanation for this is that it was to manufacture the pretext for their current actions.

#justautocraticfascistethnostatethings

Because the genocide is the goal.

Wrong question and framing.

Israel's goal is not to get rid of Hamas or their leadership.

Their real goal has been to continue the genocide of the Palestinian people so as to take 100% control of the Palestinian land and to kickout the natives.

The intention is to "liquidate" Gaza like the Wermacht liquidated the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. It is an annihilation. Hamas and the hostages are just the excuse.

Zionists did the same thing to the rest of Palestine in the Nakba of 1948. Israelis now call this the Gaza Nakba.

Err... did I misunderstood the question, or do (nearly?) all commenters have no idea what they're talking about?

You're asking why Israel doesn't assassinate Hamas's top leaders, right? Or did I misunderstood and you asking Israel doesn't ONLY assassinate Hamas's top leaders? Or are you asking why Israel responded differently to Munich?

To answer the first question, well... they are. Hamas's top leaders according to BBC are:

• Ismail Haniyeh - Killed.
• Mohammed Deif - Probably killed.
• Marwan Issa - Killed.
• Mahmoud Zahar - Alive. is 79 years old and might not be active/influential in the leadership.
• Khaled Meshaal - Alive.
• Yahya Sinwar - Alive.

Also, keep in mind that the response to the Munich massacre took about 2 decades.

As to why Israel dosen't ONLY assassinate Hamas's leadership, the simple answer is that it won't solve anything. It won't bring the hostages home (It will probably have opposite effect as a. it will leave Israel without a centralized entity with whom to negotiate and b. Sinwar might be using hostages as human shields, which also might explain why he's still alive), and it will still leave Israel with a terrorist entity next door. The official Israeli version is that the assassinations, among other things, serve as leverage on Hamas leaders to secure a deal. Obviously, this is only effective if there is some leadership left.

If you're asking why Israel responded differently to Munich, it's because the situation is totally different in numerous ways. But the question itself is also factually wrong - Israel didn't only assassinate the leaders of Black September. Firstly, the goal was to "assassinate individuals they accused of being involved in the 1972 Munich massacre", not just the leaders. Not only that, Israel also responded with raids and bombings (for example: 1973 Israeli raid in Lebanon).

Even according to Netanyahu's own statements, the Israeli war aims are the complete destruction of hamas. That's more than leaders. Before this began, estimates put the al-Qassam Brigades at 30-40k strong. So if we take Netanyahu at his word (which I don't recommend) then that would be the minimum for killed/captured before he could declare victory.

The "war" in Gaza isn't meant to take out Hamas. It's meant to eradicate the Palestinian people.

I don't think this one has a clear cut answer.

In other words, it'll come down to opinions rather than facts or truths.

There's at least three likely possibilities, in my opinion.

First is that hamas is decentralized well enough that taking out leadership only is kinda pointless.

Second, the goals of the current actions aren't solely about hamas, and taking out leaders would weaken the goals as they appear.

Third, mossad may not be able to achieve the goal, and failing would be too risky considering how much pressure is already building against israel. If they try to assassinate people in other countries, and they fail, that's going to make more enemies than they already have, despite those countries themselves already being less than friendly to Israel.

I suspect that the matter was considered, but discarded quickly. It just wouldn't achieve anything useful for them, despite the purported goal of destroying hamas.

Now, there's also the chances that the real goal is purely to destroy Palestine, and take full ownership of the land. That's a distinct possibility, imo. If that's the real underlying goal, doing anything to take down hamas before that's achieved would not happen.

I don't think that anyone can trust what a world leader engaged in a military action of any kind, so taking the stated goals as truth is a bad idea. But they could be, and if that's the case, then using assassination as a tool would weaken their position. It's kinda frowned on.

an even better question is why didn't Bibi heed any of the warnings about the imminent operation.

There’s some valuable real estate in those hills.

A ton of the Hamas leadership have been assassinated since the war began, there’s always replacements though

Because most of the Hamas leadership isn't in gaza. They're protected in other countries that are funding and arming Hamas.

My guess is that assassination isn't as easy as it is made out to be in the movies. The CIA, the best funded intelligence agency in the world, tried to take out Castro hundreds of times and failed. They couldn't find Osama for a decade, either, and even then the US used Seals, not the CIA. Sure, killing some rando is probably easy, but not a government leader who is actively avoiding assassination, as I'm sure Hamas leaders are doing.