A new report from NBC has revealed that Israel’s detailed intelligence picture of Hamas’ inner workings, put together with the help of United States intelligence, “most likely” enabled the IDF to assassinate Hamas’ number 3 official Marwan Issa. The report cites unnamed Israeli and US government and intelligence sources.

According to the report, hard drives, laptops, maps, and other materials seized by the IDF in Gaza – sometimes aided by American eavesdropping on Hamas, which has increased since the war began – also furnished Israel with the information that implicated 12 UNRWA workers of participating in the Palestinian terror group’s October 7 onslaught. Israel’s allegations against UNRWA led multiple donor countries to withhold funds from the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees in February.

Issa, whose death by Israeli airstrike on March 10 was confirmed by the White House Monday, was deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Together with the Brigades’ commander, Mohammed Deif, and Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, Issa was considered a mastermind of the October 7 assault that sparked the war.

“They have more understanding and intelligence on Hamas than they ever had before,” the NBC report quoted Matthew Levitt, a former US Treasury and State Department official, as saying of the IDF. “They have the [human resources] and more. So their understanding of what Hamas was able to do is much, much more granular.”

The report also cited unnamed US officials as saying that before October 7, American intelligence did not consider Hamas a high priority, but shifted resources toward the organization after failing to foresee the deadly attack.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)