CIA provides information on Hamas leaders to Israel
(Baonghean.vn) - The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is helping Israel collect intelligence on top Hamas officials, anonymous US officials told the New York Times.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan ordered the creation of a Hamas-focused task force in the days after the militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel, sources said. The unit will focus only on senior officials. The CIA has also raised its priority level for Hamas from Level 4 to Level 2, officials said, freeing up additional funding for intelligence gathering. But with Gaza’s borders even more tightly sealed than before the war and communications deliberately disrupted by Israel, the New York Times acknowledged that “it will take time to develop new resources.”
Washington has previously relied on West Jerusalem for information on Hamas but was alarmed to learn that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration had been holding on to details of the militant group’s plans to attack Israel, codenamed the Wall of Jericho, for more than a year without sharing the information widely within Israel or with the United States. The United States reportedly hoped that focusing on senior Palestinian militants would mitigate some of the negative consequences of West Jerusalem’s destruction of Gaza’s civilians and infrastructure. Officials told The New York Times that they were concerned that Israel’s focus on low-level Hamas members was “misguided,” explaining that these members could be easily replaced. In addition, they said, the risks to civilians were too high and could even encourage non-combatants to join the militant resistance.
The head of US Central Command, General Michael Erik Kurilla, and several other senior military officials have visited Israel several times to urge it to focus on Hamas leaders rather than mid-level or low-level fighters. Israel declared in late 2023 that it had eliminated about a third of the 20,000-25,000 Hamas fighters believed to be based in Gaza./.