Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, asks a question during the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the struggles of women and girls in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal, Wednesday, May 17, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Oct 11, 2023. Posted by Balkan Periscope - Hellas
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Wednesday the U.S. government is “not quite sure” how both itself and Israel “missed” foreseeing Palestinian militant group Hamas’s surprise attack against the Jewish state over the weekend.
“We’ve heard from the administration, there seems to be a failure of intelligence as well. We’re not quite sure how we missed it. We’re not quite sure how Israel missed it,” McCaul told reporters Wednesday following a closed-door intelligence briefing with lawmakers about the conflict.
Hamas, a
militant group that has received support from Iran, launched a multipronged
surprise attack against Israel over the weekend, invading multiple Israeli
towns by land, sea and air while sending a barrage of rocket fire from the Gaza
Strip. The initial attack claimed hundreds of lives — mostly civilians — and
wounded thousands of others.
The White
House confirmed Wednesday at least 22 Americans have died in the ensuing
violence, and 17 Americans remain unaccounted for.
The attack
immediately prompted skepticism over a potential intelligence failure within
the Israeli government, which appeared somewhat unprepared for the onslaught of
attacks.
McCaul said
he was informed Egypt warned Israel three days prior that “an event like this
could happen,” but did not provide further details on the claim.
“We know
that this had been planned perhaps as long as a year ago,” McCaul said.
Rep. David
Kustoff (R-Tenn.) said the U.S. government’s intelligence “failed us,” and he
expressed concerns over the implications of such a failure on U.S. soil.
“If our
intelligence failed, where we didn’t pick up on this, I’ve got concerns about
our own homeland,” Kustoff said Wednesday. “So from a long-term perspective, we
need to make sure that we get our own house in order to prevent … [to] make
sure that we don’t suffer an attack on our homeland like Israel did over the
past several days.”
Earlier
this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken sidestepped questions on this
week’s Sunday morning show circuit about whether the conflict was a result of
an intelligence failure, but he reiterated the U.S. and Israel plan to look
into what they missed to prevent another surprise attack.
In the
hours that followed Saturday’s attacks, Mark Esper, the former U.S. secretary
of Defense, said such an intelligence failure will have a ripple effect in
multiple ways on the Israeli government.
The
conflict has claimed at least 2,300 lives from both sides in just a matter of
days as the fighting rages on in both Israel and Gaza.
The Hill