That would be exactly my choice. One terrorist is not worth blowing up children over. Wait for a better opportunity that doesn't definitely have collateral damage. A terrorist does not "win" if he lives a bit longer. Nobody is "winning" anything in Gaza anyways right now.

Besides, blowing up children is a win for the terrorists.

Nah, that's just the a false dichotomy that's been used to manipulate public opinion.

This whole thing has to be address via Counter Insurgency methods, but that would mean actually listenning to the Palestinians, let them have enough that they don't want to lose it and not commit random acts of violence and land theft against them, so that the Insurgency Movement which is Hamas has little or no popular support at which point it becomes very easy to find and kill the terrorists.

However Israel has a far right government (I would even say Fascist), so it's all about Strength and thanks in a large extent to the support of the likes of the US (plus countries like France, the UK and Germany) they have the means and the "unwavering support" to be as violent as they feel like, hence their choice of purelly violent, no moral considerations (ultimatelly, genocidal), ways of "solving" the problem.

If you choose to kill a terrorist leader despite them having a bunch of civilians and children around, are you meaningfully different from them?

Nope, never said anything close to that. There are myriad ways to kill a terrorist without sinking to their level.

Damn, killing kids can actually prevent terrorism. I guess all these school shooters are the real heros.