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The U.S. was not aware of a Hamas attack plan in Israel’s possession that laid out the devastation of Oct. 7 more than a year before it took place, a top U.S. security official said on Sunday.
John Kirby, the National Security Council’s Coordinator for Strategic Communications, told NBC’s Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker that the U.S. intelligence community “did not have access” to a document codenamed “Jericho Wall.” The 40-page document, according to The New York Times, outlined Hamas’ specific plans for the Oct. 7 attack more than a year out, but Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed it as too ambitious for the group.
“There’s no indications at this time that they had any access to this document beforehand,” said Kirby, whose remarks were the first confirmation from the Biden administration that it did not have advance knowledge of Hamas’ attack plan.