Two years later, answers emerge on how US, Israel missed warning signs before Oct. 7 Hamas attack

Two years after the deadly terrorist attack on Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the prospects for peace, by the account of the U.S. President Donald Trump and a coterie of Arab states, seem higher than ever. 

But, a key question about the spark that ignited the conflict remains unanswered: How did U.S. intelligence miss the warning signs of an imminent attack by Hamas?

In the days before the killers spilled over the Gaza border in cars and skydiving to invade Israeli villages for the purposes of raping and mutilating civilians and Israeli soldiers caught unaware, the United States intelligence community reportedly produced several assessments warning of an increased risk of violence by Hamas, including rocket attacks. 

Biden admin ignored or "misdiagnosed" jihadist threat

At the time, the Pentagon confirmed that the U.S. was not aware of the terrorist group’s plan to attack Israel, despite the warning signs in the months and years prior, which were often fully visible in public.

In a visit to Israel last month, advisor to President Trump and Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Dr. Sebastian Gorka said he believed Western leaders, both intelligence and military, “misdiagnosed” the true threat that Hamas posed to Israel, leaving the country open to attack.  

“I think too many influential people in uniform, too many influential people in suits, misdiagnosed the nature of Hamas,” Gorka told the Israeli outlet JNS when asked what he thought went wrong on Oct. 7. 

The senior advisor also said that Western and Israeli officials were mistaken in believing that Hamas was primarily a political group with which a political solution could be negotiated. 

Israeli officials believed “there is a deal to be made with Hamas,” Gorka said. “They were wrong.”

Murder spree at music festival not foreseen, despite warning signs

When on Oct. 7, 2023, an estimated 6,000 Gazans, including 3,800 trained fighters, poured across the lightly-fortified border, and focused their murder spree on a music festival, Israeli security forces and leadership were taken completely by surprise. It took hours for the Israeli Defense Forces and the nation’s civilian leaders to marshal a counterattack even though Hamas had begun firing rockets into Israel almost an hour before the land invasion.  

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, many Israeli citizens saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as inept and distracted, consumed by domestic plans to remake the Israeli judiciary rather than focusing on keeping the country’s nearly 10 million residents safe from foreign attack. 

Then, in November of that year, The New York Times reported that it had reviewed a 40-page document obtained by Israeli intelligence that “outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.” Though the document did not specify a date for the attack, it contained details about the kind of operation that Hamas was planning. 

Yet, the intelligence was reportedly dismissed by Israeli officials because experts assessed that such an attack, in its scale and ambition, was not within Hamas’ capabilities, the Times reported. 

Pentagon said they didn't know

The spokesman for the Pentagon during the Biden administration, John Kirby, said that U.S. intelligence had not received this document and confirmed that officials were not aware of the terrorist group’s plans ahead of the attack, even if there were hints about its plans.  

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News about the failure by the U.S. to detect Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7.

The U.S. intelligence community reportedly produced two assessments shortly before the attack that warned the Biden administration that there was an increased risk of fighting between Israel and Palestinian groups. Those assessments specifically warned about the likelihood of Hamas rocket attacks across the border. A day before the attack, the community reported on unusual Hamas activity, citing Israeli intelligence, according to CNN. 

Kirby said that even if the U.S. had more information about what Hamas was planning, it may not have changed the outcome. “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,” he said after the Times report. 

The failures of both Israel and the U.S. to detect a possible attack echoes past intelligence failures by U.S. intelligence dating back to the Second World War. Famously, the Central Intelligence Agency did not pass on information to the FBI about the future hijackers in the 9/11 attacks. That failure would precipitate a reorganizing of the U.S. Intelligence Community to prevent intelligence-sharing failures. 

Like the Israelis, the Biden administration appears to have been completely taken by surprise. 

Biden advisor touted "accomplishments" of peace just before attack

Just five days before the attack, in early October, Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote in the pages of Foreign Affairs magazine, touting the accomplishments of Biden's foreign policy successes in the Middle East and how it calmed a volatile region. 

Sullivan claimed that the administration turned a region that was “highly pressurized,” with a civil war in Yemen and attacks on U.S. troops in both Iraq and Syria into a region “quieter” than it had been in decades. “Such attacks, at least for now, have largely stopped,” he wrote. “Indeed, although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is quieter than it has been for decades,” Sullivan concluded.

According to Sullivan, it was the Biden Administration’s diplomatic efforts that calmed the Middle East, specifically referring to tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors. President Biden’s policy “emphasizes deterring aggression, de-escalating conflicts, and integrating the region through joint infrastructure projects and new partnerships, including between Israel and its Arab neighbors,” Sullivan wrote. “And it is bearing fruit.”

Sullivan indicated that challenges still persisted in the Israeli-Palestine situation, but claimed that U.S. diplomatic efforts had succeeded in de-escalating tensions. “The Israeli-Palestinian situation is tense, particularly in the West Bank, but in the face of serious frictions, we have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence,” Sullivan wrote.

Only five days later, Hamas terrorists from Gaza launched a brutal attack on Israel. 1,195 people were killed in the attacks: 736 Israeli civilians (including 38 children) were murdered, and as of this month, Palestinian terror groups are still holding 48 men and women — including two Americans — captive in Gaza. Only 20 of the 48 are believed to still be alive.