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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
The Biden administration on Thursday admitted that more Americans had been killed in the fighting between Hamas and Israel following the terrorist group’s surprise attack and infiltration of the Jewish state a week ago, even as the CIA and Israeli intelligence failed to understand the significance of signs warning of an imminent attack.
The administration said during a press conference the number of Americans dead in Israel had risen to 27.
“I’ll start with the saddest of news. We can now update the number of Americans that we know have been killed to 27, and the number of unaccounted for stands today at 14. We’re obviously doing everything we can to support and inform the families,” National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said in a video posted to social media.
“Now, sadly, five more families have now gotten the worst possible news that any family can conceive of getting. And we’re going to stay in touch with them as appropriate,” he added.
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“Same goes for those family members of those who are unaccounted for. And by ‘unaccounted for,’ we mean that. We don’t know where they are. They don’t know where they are,” he said.
Earlier this week, President Joe Biden addressed the attack during remarks to reporters:
You know, there are moments in this life — and I mean this literally — when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world.
The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas — a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews.
This was an act of sheer evil.
More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered — not just killed, slaughtered — in Israel. Among them, at least 14 American citizens killed.
Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children.
Stomach-turning reports of being — babies being killed. Entire families slain. Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace — to celebrate peace. Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.
Families hid their fear for hours and hours, desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention. And thousands of wounded, alive but carrying with them the bullet holes and the shrapnel wounds and the memory of what they endured.
You all know these traumas never go away. There are still so many families desperately waiting to hear the fate of their loved ones, not knowing if they’re alive or dead or hostages. Infants in their mothers’ arms, grandparents in wheelchairs, Holocaust survivors abducted and held hostage — hostages whom Hamas has now threatened to execute in violation of every code of human morality.
It’s abhorrent. The brutality of Hamas — this bloodthirstiness — brings to mind the worst — the worst rampages of ISIS. This is terrorism.
In addition to anger and outrage over the brutality of the Iran-aligned Hamas attack, attention has since turned to how the U.S. and Israel intelligence apparatuses missed the attack.
According to Axios, “Israeli intelligence the night before the Hamas attack picked up signs of irregular activity among Hamas operatives in Gaza but top IDF and Shin Bet leaders decided not to put military forces on the borders of the enclave on high alert,” three Israeli officials told the outlet.
“While the Israeli intelligence failure was much broader and strategic, the events of the night before show how most senior officials in the Israeli defense establishment and intelligence community didn’t understand how bad the situation would become,” Axios noted further.
Former President Donald Trump even criticized friend and ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who he claimed shared blame for the failure.
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“(Netanyahu) has been hurt very badly because of what’s happened here. He was not prepared. He was not prepared, and Israel was not prepared,” Trump told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade this week.
American intelligence also detected unusual activity a few days before the attack but similarly failed to properly assess the scope of it, The New York Times reported.
