President Joe Biden in the East Room of the White House, March 12, 2024, alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The Biden administration reportedly cut Israel off from the surveillance feed of the Gaza Strip, impairing Israel’s search for hostages and hunt for Hamas terrorists.
By World Israel News Staff
The Biden administration withheld critical intelligence information regarding the Gaza Strip from the Israeli military during the war with Hamas and efforts to return hostages abducted on October 7, Reuters reported.
Six people cited in the report said that during the latter part of last year, the US military suspended Israel’s access to the live video feed from an American drone conducting reconnaissance over the Gaza Strip.
Five of the people cited by the report said that Israel was denied access to the video feed for at least a few days.
The surveillance drone had been providing intel used by Israel’s military to target Hamas terrorists, and to aid efforts to locate hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
Two sources added that the Biden administration also limited Israel’s use of some intel data in its efforts to strike Hamas terror targets in Gaza.
US intelligence officials ordered limits imposed on American intel sharing with Israel linked to the Gaza Strip amid growing criticism in the US intelligence community regarding Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza and accusations by some officials of mistreatment of captured terrorists.
According to the report, US intel agencies felt that their Israeli counterparts had failed to demonstrate sufficiently that the IDF was abiding by international laws of war when using American intelligence information.
It is unclear whether the White House was directly involved with the decision to cut off Israel’s access to the Gaza drone video feed or to limit how Israel could use other American intelligence information.
A spokesperson for the former president refused to comment on the report.
The sources cited in the report did not specify whether President Joe Biden had signed off on the intel withholding, though one source said that intelligence agency officials have some latitude to temporarily withhold information.
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