I'm not sure if the continued existence of Haniyeh and his band at Qatar is of any consequence. IDF are clearly keeping the Al Qassam brigades and Yahya Sinwar in their sites, for now. Maybe when they're done with them they'll turn to Haniyeh, but he'll probably won't matter at all by then.
Haniyeh and the others in Qatar are not the leadership. Sinwar and the commanders of Al Qassam in Gaza are the leadership. They're the ones who organised "operation Al Aqsa flood", notably without informing Haniyeh, they're the ones holding the line in Gaza, instead of being entertained by the Qataris while their people die by the hundreds daily. That's why Israel is after them and tolerating Haniyeh, who is more useful to them as an intermediary to Sinwar, than anything else.
Once the war is over and Sinwar is dead or captured then they will probably turn to Haniyeh, but until then his role is reduced to that of a senior negotiator and nothing more.
All fine, even if I don't buy it. Also, Israel actively, and openly, supported Hamas as a counter to Hizbollah (just a side note).
Still doesn't justify the conduct of war in Gaza we see, because so far nil on taking out the Hamas leadership you mentioned. And going by public statement of senior Israeli government officials (which by no means is representative of all Israelis nor all jews), the goal is more a depopulation of Gaza, with a asecond priority on Hamas leadership. One could even say, Hamas needs to be kept alive and active in order to serve as an excuse for continued war, one could say ethnic cleansing, in Gaza.
It's possible, there was an article in the NYT and reports elsewhere in the press a couple months ago on how Netanyahu directly funded Hamas because he though they were the best foil to a two-state solution. That guy is such an idiot.
Yeah, on Netanyahu we agree. He is also dangerous, as his attempt (?) of dismantling the judiciary branch of government showed. He absolutely is part of the group of wannabe authocrats in Western-style democracies: Trump, Le Pen, the AfD, Meloni, Erdogan, Modi... The list is quite long, unfortunately.
