Comment on this storyComment
The Biden administration moved on Sunday to prevent Hamas’ attack on Israel from escalating into a multi-front regional conflict by deploying a U.S. aircraft carrier group to the eastern Mediterranean and supplying the Israeli military with weapons to deter Lebanon-based Hezbollah and protect other actors from attacks.
The effort came amid close consultations between President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government formally declared war on Hamas on Sunday. U.S. officials expect Israel to launch a broad ground attack against the militant group within the next 24 to 48 hours after more than 700 Israelis were killed in the sophisticated Hamas attack on Saturday. Israeli reprisals have killed more than 400 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
American citizens are likely among the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday. At least several Americans were killed in the attack, a senior government official confirmed.
The toll raises the stakes for the Biden administration as it undertakes a complicated multinational effort to contain the possibility of further attacks on Israel. Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group and Lebanon’s largest political party, has a history of attacking Israel when Jerusalem has been embroiled in hostilities with Hamas.
“No one else should be trying to take advantage of this situation,” Blinken told CNN on Sunday. “This is something we are watching very closely.”
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, addressed an emergency Security Council meeting at the United Nations on October 8. (Video: Sipa USA via AP)
The emerging war has dealt a blow to one of Biden’s most significant foreign policy achievements, his attempt to get Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel. The Saudis made this agreement conditional on Israel making concessions to the Palestinians – possibly withdrawals from settlements or increases in medical and financial aid – But a broad Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip is unlikely to advance that cause, policymakers said.
The Biden administration has paused the Saudi initiative for now and focused its diplomatic efforts on getting Israel’s neighbors to step aside as Jerusalem tries to crush Hamas.
Blinken and other top diplomats manned the phones Sunday, calling officials across the region to relay messages to Hezbollah urging the group not to attack Israel. The deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford’s battle group to the eastern Mediterranean was also intended to send a deterrent message to the Lebanese militant and political force, according to a senior government official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security calculations.
Asked whether Hamas may have acted in partnership with Iran to disrupt efforts to broker a Saudi deal, Blinken said: “That may have been part of the motivation.” Look, who is against normalization? Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran.”
However, he said: “We have not yet seen any evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack.”
Washington’s direct military aid to Israel is expected to replenish the ammunition Israel will withdraw in the fight against Hamas and provide an additional deterrent against Hezbollah, Iran and others that might be tempted to attack Israel, the official said.
Israel’s request for “Iron Dome” interceptors – surface-to-air missiles that target incoming missiles – is a precautionary step in anticipation of future bombings, rather than an indication that the anti-missile weapon was critical to protecting Israeli citizens , incoming fire is running low, U.S. officials said.
Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials struck a harsh tone in their talks with American counterparts this weekend, apparently shaken by an attack that represents a greater blow relative to their country’s population than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States states, the senior administration official said.
In a phone call with Netanyahu on Sunday, Biden “pledged his full support for the government and people of Israel in the face of an unprecedented and horrific attack by Hamas terrorists,” the White House said in a statement. “The leaders also discussed ongoing efforts to ensure that no enemies of Israel believe they can or should take advantage of the current situation,” the statement continued.
The U.S. government “will quickly provide Israeli forces with additional equipment and resources, including ammunition.” “The initial security assistance will begin today and arrive in the coming days,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement on Sunday.
The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford – the US Navy’s newest and most advanced platform — along with an accompanying strike group is sent to the region. The US Air Force will also station a significant contingent, said Austin. In total, thousands of military personnel will be involved in the operations.
Beyond the Iron Dome rockets, Israeli officials have made several specific demands to Washington in response to Hamas’s military offensive, including small-diameter bombs, machine gun ammunition and increased intelligence-sharing cooperation, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations. Some of Israel’s military requests, including those for small-diameter bombs, are being processed and expedited, an official said.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment on the request. “We do not comment on the needs of the Army that are discussed with the United States,” she said.
The Biden administration is expected to provide money for the Israeli government in addition to additional military support for Ukraine in a funding request to Congress, the officials said.
The administration is still sorting out the legal implications of the absence of a House speaker, an unprecedented situation that could pose a hurdle to congressional approval of aid, an official said.
At a closed session of the United Nations Security Council on Sunday afternoon, there was broad but not complete agreement on how to distribute blame for the current crisis.
“There were a number of countries that condemned the Hamas attacks,” Robert Wood, the deputy U.S. representative, told reporters as he left the meeting. “But of course not all.”
While there was widespread horror at the attacks – and particularly at the military and civilian hostages held by Hamas – others highlighted concerns about Palestinian civilians, the need for a “proportionate” Israeli response and the lack of progress in resolving the underlying Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
Both Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan and Riyad Mansour, a representative of the Palestinian Authority’s U.N. observer mission, spoke to reporters separately before the meeting and were far less sensible in their remarks.
Erdan showed photos and videos of dead Israelis and civilians taken to Gaza and compared the attacks to the “pogroms” and “Nazi death squads of the 1940s.” He said Israel wanted to condemn Hamas completely but would still go its own way.
“Today, many members of the international community support us. Yes. But if history has taught us anything, we know that that may not be the case tomorrow,” Erdan said. Terrorism against Israelis “is quickly becoming a side note.” But this time it won’t be the same. We will not let the world forget.”
Mansour was equally critical of the international body, but from the opposite perspective.
“This is not the time for Israel to double down on its terror choices,” he said. “We know only too well that messages about Israel’s right to defend itself are interpreted by Israel as a license to kill in pursuit of the very path that brought us here.”
As Israeli forces prepare to invade Gaza, the government called for increased cooperation with the United States and its extensive surveillance powers.
Israeli intelligence efforts – once considered omnipresent in Gaza – have been in the spotlight after the Hamas invasion was not recognized.
It was “unbelievable, unbearable”. said Yigal Unna, a former senior official in Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, as well as a former officer in the Israeli military’s famed hacking and espionage unit Unit 8200.
The military’s operational failure is even worse, “because one would expect that Israel’s most sensitive and dangerous border would be better defended,” Unna added.
The fact that it is a holiday is no excuse, he said. “This is Israel’s most dangerous front line and we have spent billions on technology,” he said. for example, enabled Israel to detect underground tunnels. The fact that it was so poorly defended is “unconscionable.”
Shin Bet and Israeli military intelligence have equipped Gaza with surveillance through human spies, sensors and other technological means such as listening devices, cameras and drones.
Intelligence agencies may have mistaken Hamas’s movements for exercises, repeating a similar mistake in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel misinterpreted the first steps of an invasion of Syria in the north and Egypt in the south as a defense exercise.
“Hamas is constantly practicing,” said Unna, who currently works at Reichman University’s International Counterterrorism Institute. “They are conducting exercises to invade settlements. They train. We’ll look at it. It was just training. Yesterday it became a reality.”
Stephen Slick, a former CIA station chief in Tel Aviv who now directs the intelligence studies project at the University of Texas at Austin, said that given the scale and variety of Hamas attacks, “it is highly unlikely that the planning, training and Positioning this number of fighters would have escaped Israeli collection systems. It is more likely that relevant information was not properly processed or evaluated or identified as an indicator of hostilities.”
Hamas leaders and military commanders also appeared to have demonstrated “extraordinary operational security and communications discipline,” Slick said. “Hamas will have learned from the numerous previous cases in which its rocket attacks on Israel triggered an immediate response from the Israeli military, informed by extensive intelligence information about the location of its weapons, leaders and fighters.”
Norman Roule, a veteran CIA officer who led several Middle East programs for the intelligence community, said it appeared Hamas leaders had “dramatically changed their approach” to keep their conspiracy and training secret. Like Unna, he noticed the surprise The attack was facilitated by the lack of a timely response by the Israeli security forces.
Slick noted that in recent years, Shin Bet and the Military Intelligence Directorate have “achieved an extraordinary level of attention to developments in Gaza, including the activities of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group.”
After Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the government He said he had prioritized increasing intelligence and surveillance capabilities to ensure that extremists who eventually took control there would not threaten Israel’s south. “It is possible that Israeli officials will become complacent.”
On the diplomatic front, Israel’s attacks and military response would “complicate Saudi-Israeli normalization talks, but need not derail them,” Slick said.
“Israel remains committed to the relationship while Saudi resolve will be tested by the predictable criticism that will accompany Israel’s military actions in Gaza,” he said.
Karen DeYoung, Toluse Olorunnipa and Missy Ryan contributed to this report.