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.