The US Essentially Gave Up Spying on Hamas Long Ago

As a retired CIA operations officer puts it, at least some of the blame for missing the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel should fall to the US, which more than two decades ago decided to essentially stop spying on the group. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the CIA decided to shift resources toward al-Qaeda and, subsequently, ISIS, believing Israel's own robust spying capabilities would allow it to suss out any imminent threat. Sources say that in the lead-up to the Hamas attack, there were CIA analysts in the region, but more invasive spy operations like infiltrating the group or eavesdropping on it were left to Israel.

Hamas, which emerged in 1987 and was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US in 1997, appeared in the bottom half of the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, a classified document that ranks intelligence-gathering priorities, per another source. The New York Times echoes the Journal, reporting that US spy agencies had all but given up collecting intel on Hamas and its plans, viewing the group a regional threat that Israel had under control, not a global threat akin to Hezbollah or ISIS. The newspaper adds: "Some parts of the American government even believed that Hamas operatives could be recruited as sources of information about terrorist groups considered more urgent priorities in Washington." (More Hamas stories.)