ROME.- The intelligence provided by the United States that helped organize last week’s rescue of four Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza was secondary to information gathered by Israeli agents in Gaza before the raid. The Washington Post reports it.
According to American and Israeli officials quoted by the American newspaper, the United States provided aerial images to help Israel organize the daylight rescue.
The WP also quotes American officials as saying that members of America’s elite JSOC force, which has “deep experience in hostage rescue,” have been working closely with counterparts in Israel since October 7.
Already in October, plans were made – but ultimately not executed – for the deployment of JSOC forces to Gaza to rescue the US hostages. “If we had been able to unilaterally obtain information and thought we could get the Americans out alive, we might have acted, but in reality there was very little information about the US hostages,” said one of the American officials quoted by the Washington Post.
The WP highlights the importance of human intelligence inside Gaza, which is gradually increasing as the war continues, including through interrogations of detained Hamas operatives and the examination of documents and digital files discovered during operations in course in the Strip.
Information gathered from these sources was used in Saturday’s hostage rescue operation and in previous operations to recover the hostages’ bodies, the Washington Post reports.
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