According to an exclusive report from the Washington Post, Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, refused to carry out a plan it had developed in recent weeks to use operatives on the ground in Qatar to assassinate Hamas leaders. That refusal reportedly led to last week’s failed Israeli Air Force strike on a Hamas leadership meeting in Doha.

Mossad Director David Barnea is said to have opposed the plan, partly out of concern that killing Hamas officials in Qatar would jeopardize the ties his agency had built with Doha, which has been hosting Hamas leaders and mediating ceasefire negotiations between the group and Israel.

With Mossad off the table, Israel instead chose a fallback option: sending 15 fighter jets to fire 10 air-launched ballistic missiles at the meeting site in Doha. Hamas later claimed the strike failed to eliminate senior officials, including acting leader Khalil al-Hayya, and instead killed several aides, relatives of the delegation, and an officer from Qatar’s Interior Ministry.

Barnea was not alone in opposing the attack. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir—who has previously urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire—also objected, warning the strike could derail negotiations. Still, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Defense Minister Israel Katz supported Netanyahu’s push for the operation.

Notably absent from the final meeting on the Doha strike was Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon, the senior officer overseeing hostage negotiations. Sources said political leaders deliberately excluded him, believing he would oppose an operation that could endanger Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.