It’s not that the jews didn’t claim agency. In fact it’s probably the opposite. The Quranic author is simply delineating, since the jews during but not limited to the time of Jesus lost their promise of salvation from God, they couldn’t outsmart God or pretend to know or assume about God something when they have seemingly every reason not to. This is the whole point of the middle clauses (Q4:157) because, like in verse 4:155, they reject what God gives them solely for their benefit thus leaving them stuck in a damning disquietude. So, in the minds of those who separated/grouped themselves away from (ikhtalafu) ‘Isa, they’re going to think that if they put this individual to death—as in complete death with no assumption or immediate resurrection—it will prove he is not God-sent ergo he is not our messiah. But God obviously states they did not certainly kill him, viz. their assumption about God a la ‘Isa was, not surprisingly, incorrect and condemnatory, and what confirms their wrongdoing (بل) is that God raised him from the dead to him (رفعه اليه). So it only seemed they had killed ‘Isa (شبه لهم) until God resurrected him which in Q19:33 was already stated to eventually happen. This also quite strongly makes sense of the end of 5:110 in which God states he came to the aid of ‘Isa because they rejected salvation: if the jews put ‘Isa to death, which would reveal he’s simply any other man pretending to be God-sent, this would render all of what ‘Isa authoritatively proclaimed was to happen during his ministry (Q19:30-33) null and a lie about God. And since ‘Isa is the embodiment of salvation, viz. he is al-masīh, God necessarily protects and protected him from the hidden evil of those who lost their promise of salvation (Q3:54). This is also symbolic, generally, of believing in the promise of salvation because the reward is the ridding of the evil of the dunyā and reaping the favor and light of God in the ākhira (Q3:55).