U.S. Intelligence Wasn’t Aware of Hamas’ Plan to Attack: NSC Spokesman

The U.S. intelligence community has “indicated that they did not have access to” a document outlining Hamas‘ plan to attack Israel, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said.

According to a New York Times report last week, Israeli officials had circulated a 40-page document detailing Hamas’ planned assault on Israeli defense forces near the Gaza strip a year ahead of the attack that killed more than 1,100, but they dismissed the plans as overly ambitious and unrealistic, underestimating the militant group’s capabilities.

Appearing on Sunday’s Meet the Press, Kirby told host Kristen Welker, “The intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document. There’s no indications at this time that they had any access to this document beforehand.”

Welker followed up, asking, “Should they have, given how closely U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials coordinate and are supposed to coordinate?”

“Intelligence is a mosaic and sometimes, you know, you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture,” Kirby replied. “Other times, you know, that, there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing. As I said, our own intelligence community said that they’ve looked at this. They have no indications at this time that they had any advanced warning of this document or any knowledge of it.”

Kirby added that he believes there will be a “time and a place for Israel to do that sort of forensic work” to determine whether the attack was due to a failure of Israeli or U.S. intelligence.

“I mean, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s already spoken pretty candidly about this and calling it a failure on their part. They’ll take a look at this at the right time. They need to do that,” he said.

It is not known whether Netanyahu himself or if Israel’s other top political leaders saw the document. Netanyahu last month posted and then deleted a statement on X (formerly Twitter) that read: “At no point was a warning given to Prime Minister Netanyahu on Hamas’s intention to start a war. On the contrary, all the defense officials… assessed that Hamas was deterred.”

When the conversation turned to the now-ended temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the current status of negotiations, Kirby said talks are not ongoing.

“There are no official negotiations going on right now, Kristen, and that’s because of Hamas,” Kirby said. “Hamas failed to come up with yet another list of women and children that could be released, and we know they’re holding additional women and children — not combatants, not female IDF soldiers but innocent civilians, women and children that they have that they couldn’t put on a list and and turn that in. So unfortunately, the negotiations have stopped. That said what hasn’t stopped is our own involvement, trying to get those back on track and trying to discuss with those partners and all those interlocutors, see if we can’t get it back in place.”

Kirby could not offer a timeline for resuming discussions but said that the U.S. is “working it really hard hour by hour to see if we can get the sides back to the table and see if we can get something moving.”

“We would like that to happen today. But honestly, I just don’t know,” he added.

Regarding the remaining hostages held by Hamas, including some Americans who are yet unaccounted for, Kirby said the information the U.S. has is “imperfect,” but that the White House believes “there are still a number of Americans that are being held hostage.”

“We’re getting that from communication with the family members and, of course, our Israeli counterparts. But it’s difficult for us to know where they all are. And, just as critically, Kristen, it’s difficult for us to know what their condition is,” he said.

Although Hamas had agreed to allow the Red Cross to see the hostages during the temporary pause in hostilities, Kirby said “that didn’t happen and is still not happening.” He emphasized, however, that “humanitarian assistance” is still entering Gaza, although not at the rate “we want to see.”

“The ultimate goal, is to try to get it at least to the… upper level that it was during the pause. We had several hundred trucks going in, sometimes several hundred a day. And so that’s what we want to get up to.”

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said that 100 aid trucks entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt on Sunday. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said this week that an “epic humanitarian catastrophe” was unfolding in Gaza as residents have hardly any access to clean water, safe shelter, or medical care. The resumption of hostilities have only exacerbated the situation. Israel’s assault has killed at least 15,200 Gazans since the Oct. 7 start of the war, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.