National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said Sunday that the United States intelligence community has given no indication it was aware of Hamas's plans to target Israel ahead of the Oct. 7 attack.
Kirby was asked Sunday about a New York Times report that Israeli officials obtained plans by Hamas more than a year before the early October attack that resulted in more than 1,200 Israeli deaths by the Gaza-based militant group, saying there are "no indications" the United States intelligence community was aware or had access to this document ahead of time.
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Kirby and Jean-Pierre gave an update on the release of 50 hostages by Hamas, including one American child, on Monday Nov. 27, 2023.
“The intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document. That there’s no indications at this time that they had any access to this document beforehand,” Kirby told NBC's Kristen Welker on Meet the Press.
Israeli officials told the Times that if the Israeli military had taken more consideration of the nearly 40-page document, they could have thwarted the attacks. The report said that Israeli leadership disregarded the warning because it saw the plans as something beyond Hamas's capabilities.
Kirby did not say directly whether the Oct. 7 attack marked a failure by Israeli intelligence operations but said there would be a "time and a place" for Israel to investigate what went wrong ahead of the deadly attack by Hamas.
“Intelligence is a mosaic, and sometimes you fashion things together and get a pretty good picture, and other times there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing,” Kirby said, adding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has already spoken "pretty candidly about this calling it a failure on their part."
NEW: The U.S. intel community was not aware of Hamas' attack plan on Israel, NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby says.
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023
The New York Times reported that Israel received the attack plan over a year ago. pic.twitter.com/MrYJMIZlZ6
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Kirby was also asked about the recent temporary ceasefire that ended Friday and led to Hamas releasing more than 100 hostages in exchange for Israel releasing around 240 Palestinian prisoners, saying he doesn't know when negotiations will resume for a truce between Israel and the militant group.
“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,” he continued.