Controversial statements

Khalil al-Hayya reportedly survived, though he did not attend his son’s funeral, fueling speculation about his condition, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported. Hamas claimed Israel’s attempt to assassinate him had failed.

Asked by Channel 12 whether his comments had been taken out of context, Olmert said, “I don’t think it’s right to eliminate family members of terrorists”but that Hamas leaders are legitimate military targets.

“All members of the Hamas negotiating team are terrorists and therefore mortal. I would have eliminated them—but not during negotiations, and not in Qatar, which assists in these talks,” he told Channel 12.

Olmert has made a series of controversial statements in recent years. In a June 3 interview with PBS News he accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of waging a “private war”for “political considerations.” He called the government’s supporters “messianic groups of thugs.”

In a Haaretz op-ed in May, he accused Israel of committing war crimes and referred to the Netanyahu government as a “criminal gang.”

In 2023, during the judicial reform protests, Olmert appeared to call for violence.

“What is needed is to move to the next stage, the stage of war, and war is not waged with speeches. War is waged in a face-to-face battle, head-to-head and hand-to-hand, and that is what will happen here,” he said in an interview with DemocraTV, according to Israel National News.

At the time, the Likud Party filed a police complaint over Olmert’s “dangerous incitement.”

In Nov. 2022, Olmert lost a defamation lawsuit to Netanyahu after claiming that the prime minister, his wife and youngest son, Yair, were mentally ill. The Netanyahus were awarded roughly $18,000.