American intelligence had warned of the potential for violence days before the Hamas attack.
Source: Profimedia
The U.S. intelligence community issued at least two assessments based in part on Israeli intelligence warning the Biden administration of an increased risk for Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the weeks ahead of Saturday’s seismic strike in southern Israel, according to sources familiar with the intelligence, CNN reports.
One September 28 update warned, based on multiple intelligence streams, that the terrorist group Hamas is ready to escalate rocket attacks across the border. The October 5 CIA cable generally warned of the increasing possibility of violence by Hamas. Then, on October 6, the day before the attack, US officials circulated reports from Israel indicating unusual activity by Hamas. – indications that are now clear: the attack was inevitable.
None of the U.S. assessments offered any tactical details or indication of the sheer scope, scale and sheer brutality of the operation Hamas carried out on Oct. 7, the sources said. It is unclear whether any of these US assessments were shared with Israel, which provides much of the intelligence on which the US bases its reports.
Israel, Gaza and the West Bank are also on a list of “hot spots” included in almost daily intelligence briefings for senior officials, the person receiving the briefings said. Intelligence assessments are written by the intelligence community to inform policymakers and enable them to make decisions. “The problem is that none of this is new,” said one of the intelligence sources. “This is something that has historically been the norm between Hamas and Israel. I think what happened was that everybody saw these reports and said, ‘Yeah, sure. But we know what this is going to look like.'”
A senior official from an Arab country in the region said his country had repeatedly expressed concern to US and Israeli officials that Palestinian anger was reaching dangerous levels. “But they never listened every time we warned them,” the official said. A Middle East diplomat in Washington also told CNN that it was their government has repeatedly warned the White House and US intelligence officials about Hamas’ weapons buildup and anger among Palestinians about to explode.
And in February, CIA Director Bill Burns told an audience at the Georgetown School of Foreign Affairs that he was ‘quite concerned about the prospect of even more fragility and even more violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians.’ “I wouldn’t come to the conclusion that the intelligence community wasn’t monitoring it from a strategic level — in fact they were,” a US official told CNN.
Yet those strategic warnings did nothing to help American or Israeli officials anticipate the events of October 7, when more than 1,000 Hamas fighters crossed the border into Israel in an operation that killed more than a thousand Israelis. For most U.S. and Israeli officials monitoring the intelligence, the expectation was that another round of smaller-scale violence by Hamas was likely — perhaps some rocket fire that would be intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome, one source familiar with the intelligence explained. .
“If we knew or if we knew of an attack on an ally in progress, we would have clearly informed that ally,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday. Senior Biden administration officials, as well as current and former intelligence officials, continue to say they are still focused on the crisis ahead and insist that it is too early to review how planning such a massive attack went wrong.
Another source familiar with the intelligence services summed up the US position: “Israel missed this, not us. We have a certain level of confidence in Shin Bet, IS, Mossad and others.” The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA declined to comment.
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