CIA said to have established task force to locate top Hamas leaders, hostages
New York Times says some in Washington pressing Israel to pivot from all-out war on Hamas to focus on killing top leaders; US intelligence gives new priority to monitoring Hamas
The US Central Intelligence Agency set up a new task force in the wake of the October 7 Hamas-led assault on Israel that is gathering intelligence on the location of senior leaders of the terror group and the hostages it is holding in Gaza, and sharing the information with Israel, The New York Times reported Friday, citing US officials.
According to the report, the directive to create the new task force was sent out by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in the wake of the attack in which some 3,000 Hamas terrorists stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians and taking another 240 hostages. Several US citizens were among the dead and captured.
The Office of the US Director of National Intelligence has also bumped up Hamas on its list of priorities from a low level four status before October 7 to a more urgent level two. Level one is reserved for major American foes like Iran, North Korea, Russia and China.
According to the report, the US has already started transferring information to Israel on the location of senior leaders. However, it is not clear how effective this has been; none of the major leaders in Gaza has yet been killed or captured.
The report noted that the US did not give Israel information leading to the killing of deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri. Arouri was killed in a drone strike in Beirut on January 2 in an attack widely attributed to Israel, although Jerusalem has not confirmed it.
It also noted that even if the information has been given to Israel on the location of top leaders like Yahya Sinwar, or Hamas’s shadowy military chief Mohammed Deif, Israel may not be able to immediately act on the information.
US officials echoed reports in Israel this week that Sinwar’s location deep in the tunnels of Gaza is known to Israel, but the IDF can’t strike because he has surrounded himself with many hostages.
According to the report, the “US military has been pushing Israel to retool its military campaign to focus on killing or capturing top leaders, rather than the broader strikes that have resulted in huge numbers of civilian casualties in Gaza.” Some US officials also believe “targeting low-level Hamas members is misguided because they can be easily replaced,” the report said.
Israel says it has killed more than 8,500 Hamas terrorists in Gaza along with another 1,000 who were killed in Israel on October 7. Hamas was believed to have some 20,000 – 25,000 fighters before the war.
Eliminating key figures such as Sinwar and Deif “would likely give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more latitude with the Israeli public to wind down the military campaign in Gaza,” the report said,
The report said that among the efforts being undertaken by the US was an increase in drone flights over Gaza and attempts to intercept Hamas communications.
The task force is also focused on locating the hostages and providing information on their conditions. The report noted that CIA Director Robert Burns was deeply involved in negotiations that led to a deal that saw some of the hostages released at the end of November.
The CIA declined to comment on the report.
It is believed that 132 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November.
Four hostages were released prior to that, and one was rescued by troops. The bodies of eight hostages have also been recovered and three hostages were mistakenly killed by the military. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 25 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.
One more person is listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
Hamas has also been holding the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014, as well as two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
