Israel-Hamas Conflict: US Intel Inputs To Israel Were Ignored By Tel Aviv

The US intelligence community has claimed that it had sent at least two assessments based in part on intelligence provided by Israel warning the Biden administration of an increased risk for Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the weeks ahead of the Oct 7 attack on southern Israel.

Assessment did not say what, where and how the conflict will look like

But the assessment did not specifically say what, where and how the conflict theatre will look like and the inputs were nowhere close to the blitzkrieg launched by Hamas from air, sea and land, defence experts and former armed forces officers were quoted in the media.

An update from September 28 only warned that Hamas was poised to escalate rocket-attacks across the border. An October 5 wire from the CIA warned generally of the increasing possibility of violence by Hamas. Then, on October 6, the day before the attack, US officials circulated reporting from Israel indicating unusual activity by Hamas indications that are now clear: an attack was imminent.

Unclear if any of these US assessments were shared with Israel

It is unclear if any of these US assessments were shared with Israel, which provides much of the intelligence that the US bases its reports on. The New York Times also reported that some of the key reports did not climb up the ladder to President Joe Biden. The US administration assessment was that there would only be rocket attacks for which Israel had the Iron Dome to counter.

"The problem is that none of this (the assessments) is new," said one of the sources familiar with the intelligence. "This is something that has historically been the norm between Hamas and Israel. I think what happened is everyone saw these reports and were like, ‘Yeah of course. But we know what this will look like.’ Israeli intelligence too did not pick up any signs of an attack despite the fact that Hamas militants carried out large scale training drills for its deadly attack just 750 meters from the highly patrolled border with Israel. Though Israel, Gaza and the West Bank are on a hot spots list included in intelligence briefings for senior officials almost daily, no agency picked the footprints of the Hamas attack."

"They never listened every time we warned them"

CNN quoted a senior official from an Arab country in the region saying his country repeatedly raised concerns with US and Israeli officials that Palestinian anger was reaching a dangerous pitch. "But they never listened every time we warned them," the official said.

A Middle Eastern diplomat in Washington, DC, also told CNN that their government had repeatedly warned the White House and US intelligence officials of a buildup of Hamas weapons and anger among Palestinians that was set to explode. "The arms that exist in Gaza are beyond the imagination of anybody’s thinking," they warned, the diplomat said. "The arms that exist in the West Bank, via Hamas, are also becoming a real problem and Hamas control of the West Bank is a real issue. This in every meeting, every meeting in the last year and a half," the diplomat added.

Meanwhile, sources said Hamas did not communicate its plans to Teheran as it was aware that Iran was always under the close watch of the US and the Five Eyes. Any form of communication would have been picked up within seconds. Hamas likely hid the planning of the operation through old-fashioned counterintelligence measures such as conducting planning meetings in person and staying off digital communications whose signals the Israelis can track.