The United States was not aware of the Islamist group Hamas' plan to carry out an attack against Israel, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said this Sunday.
The official's statements come after The New York Times reported this week that Israeli authorities had access to a 40-page document that detailed a plan like the one Hamas carried out on October 7, which left 1,200 dead in Israel, before it happened.
The US intelligence services "have indicated that they did not have access to this document," Kirby said this Sunday in an interview he gave to NBC News.
Asked if the United States should have been aware of these plans, given the close coordination it has with Israel, Kirby pointed out that intelligence tasks are like "a mosaic." "Sometimes you can do things together and get a pretty good picture. Other times, you know there are pieces of the puzzle missing," she explained.
The New York Times revealed on Thursday that Israeli authorities had access to a Hamas plan that contemplated the use of drones to destroy security cameras and machine guns on the border with the Gaza Strip or the massive entry of militants. on foot, by motorcycle and using paragliders, although it did not establish a date for the operation.
Military officials in the region did not believe that an attack of such magnitude was possible and doubted that the plan would have been accepted by the Palestinian group.
The Hamas attack was the bloodiest episode in Israel's history and prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare war on the group and launch an offensive on the Strip that has already claimed the lives of more than 15,000 people, according to to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Bombings and attacks resumed on Friday after a seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas that allowed the release of more than a hundred hostages and facilitated the entry of humanitarian aid into the Strip.
Both Kirby and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Hamas of having broken the truce and having "breached the commitments it had made."
