--- title: Exclusive: US Scrambles to Put More Intel Analysts on Hamas description: US Military analysts focused on other militant groups were reassigned to Hamas and Gaza after the attack on Israel, sources tell TIME. canonical: https://time.com/6328599/israel-hamas-us-intelligence-analysts/ author: Brian Bennett article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-10-25T21:01:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:49.497Z article:section: Politics og:title: US Scrambled to Assign Intel Analysts to Hamas After Attack og:description: The U.S. military has scrambled to add more intelligence analysts to cover Hamas since the group's gruesome attack on Israel, according to two people familiar with the changes og:url: https://time.com/6328599/israel-hamas-us-intelligence-analysts/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc642b895d1899190/698a41b8096a9416e86ae42a/GettyImages-1745046885.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: US Scrambled to Assign Intel Analysts to Hamas After Attack twitter:description: The U.S. military has scrambled to add more intelligence analysts to cover Hamas since the group's gruesome attack on Israel, according to two people familiar with the changes twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc642b895d1899190/698a41b8096a9416e86ae42a/GettyImages-1745046885.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # U.S. Military Scrambled to Put More Intel Analysts on Hamas After Oct. 7 Massacre > Sponsored content. 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Arab leaders called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, over fears of a worsening humanitarian crisis._  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is a former senior White House correspondent at TIME. Oct 25, 2023 9:01 PM UTC  An Israeli soldier stands next to an armoured personnel carrier near Sderot on the border with the Gaza Strip on October 25, 2023, as battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement continue. An Israeli soldier stands next to an armoured personnel carrier near Sderot on the border with the Gaza Strip on October 25, 2023, as battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement continue. Menahem Kahana—AFP via Getty Images  by [Brian Bennett](https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/)  ## Brian Bennett Bennett is a former senior White House correspondent at TIME. Oct 25, 2023 9:01 PM UTC The U.S. military has scrambled to add more intelligence analysts to cover Israeli and Palestinian issues since Hamas launched its gruesome killing spree in southern Israel on Oct. 7, according to two people familiar with the changes. Analysts at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters near Tampa, Fla., who had been following Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and other militant groups were reassigned to also start tracking developments and information related to the emerging war between Israel and Hamas, said the people, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized publicly to discuss the matter. The shift in resources was needed because leaders at CENTCOM, which oversees the U.S. war machine in the Middle East and Central Asia, had reduced the number of billets for civilian intelligence analysts tasked with keeping track of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the previous three years, said a person familiar with the changes. Those analysts that remained on the issue had focused less on Gaza and more on the West Bank and understanding internal Israeli politics, the person said. Collecting and reviewing information about Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza has taken on new urgency for CENTCOM because Hamas is holding more than 200 hostages and some 10 Americans taken during the deadly rampage, and Iranian-backed militias have stepped up attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria. President Biden has also directed two powerful carrier strike groups to sail closer to Israel. All three situations require CENTCOM’s attention. ### More From TIME The reshuffle reflects how the Oct. 7 attacks sent shockwaves through the U.S. national security apparatus, upending its priorities in the region. It also raises questions about how the broader U.S. intelligence community allocated its resources in the months and years preceding Hamas’ surprise offensive. Officials at CENTCOM did not offer an explanation for why intelligence analysts needed to be reassigned. “At this time, we are focused on providing our support to the people of Israel. We have a close partnership with Israel and always share timely intelligence about threats in the region with our partners,” said Michael Lawhorn, a spokesperson for CENTCOM, in a statement. “Our intelligence community is working hard to gain as much fidelity as possible. Will not comment further on the specifics of our intelligence sharing,” Lawhorn said. Officials at the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the entire U.S. intelligence community, declined to comment. During the Trump and Biden administrations, the U.S. government had focused diplomatic efforts in the region on trying to help normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and countering Iranian influence in conflicts from Yemen to Syria. The Biden administration was caught by surprise by Hamas’ surprise attacks. “They didn’t see it coming. It’s not that they did a bad job. It’s just a reminder of the unpredictability of international relations,” says Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow and director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “The Israelis watch Gaza every day and they missed it.” Earlier this year, CIA director William Burns suggested the situation in the region could soon turn more volatile. “Conversations I had with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, you know, I think it left me quite concerned about the prospects for even greater fragility and even greater violence between Israelis and Palestinians as well,” Burns said during a public discussion at Georgetown University in February. He added that he and others in the intelligence community were seeing similarities to a leading up to the Second Intifada uprising that lasted more than four years after former President Bill Clinton’s Camp David Summit failed to deliver a two-state solution in 2000. In recent years, U.S. intelligence officials haven’t focused many resources on Hamas and the Gaza Strip because it wasn’t seen as presenting a threat to the U.S. homeland, said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak about closed-door discussions. "Israel is responsible for their own backyard. We cannot keep close tabs on Gaza the way they do,” the official says. A decision by intelligence leaders to reallocate resources now, the official adds, “does not mean they were improperly allocated before” but that intelligence leaders are responding to new developments. "Given the outbreak in Israel, there is a larger risk, not so much of Hamas striking our homeland, as turning into a larger regional conflict that endangers US troops in the region,” the official says. In recent days, Iran-backed proxy forces have launched drone attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, injuring U.S. service members, and a U.S. Naval ship shot down a rocket fired by Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen that was heading toward Israel. ## Transcript We are all here together. With a unified message that more violence is not the answer that all civilian life is deserving of protection and that includes the lives of the Palestinian civilians in Azusa. And that is why we are all here standing together calling for an immediate cease-fire for an immediate listing of the blockade on Gaza and for a return to a peace process a return to the true serious approach to resolving the existing grievances of the Palestinian people. We call on the security Council to undertake its responsibilities as defined in the charger to work for the cessation of hostilities immediate and sustained ceasefire and to provide the protection for all civilian. Again, we condemn the targeting of all civilians and we consider it imperative that the International Community on the takes its responsibility to address the issue. Gross violations of international humanitarian law we can no longer only address the two-state solution and Advocate as a matter of lip service that the International Community of the security Council do have the necessary resources and means to implement what has become recognized as the international community's consensus to the end of this conflict on the basis of a two-state solution living side-by-side in peace and security before anybody else. We expressed outrage at the killing of civilians. We have we went we met him and we all took one unified start and we said we condemned the killing of civilians. Where are outraged at where that moment has gotten us as well with outrageous. What's happening now in Gaza, 6,000 people slaughtered children women daughters fathers and grandfathers all suffering or dying under under bombardment. We should be Call Teta telling people we should be outraged that feeling this way by not getting the device that they deserve what we want is peace peace, that will will fulfill the rights of the Palestinian statehood. Freedom will ensure the security of Israel and that's a position that we took in 2002. The Arab peace initiative. We said that we should all of us are willing to have normal relations with Israel in return for one thing in the illegal occupation of the Palestinian land anticipation of the Palestinian people withdraw from other plans with your part. And let's hope this is a humanitarian imperative. We are facing a desperate situation in Russia. Right now. We're facing an impending humanitarian catastrophe every hour. We speak more civilians and more people are getting in this situation is getting worse. A ceasefire is an absolute necessity necessity immediately to address all of the other issues. We have called quite clearly for a reason hostages and that is absolutely necessary. But the protection of Civilian lives the protection of infrastructure, especially hospitals and other infrastructure required for the survival of us is also an imperative that must be met immediately. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6328599/israel-hamas-us-intelligence-analysts/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6328599/israel-hamas-us-intelligence-analysts/"},"headline":"U.S. Military Scrambled to Put More Intel Analysts on Hamas After Oct. 7 Massacre","datePublished":"2023-10-25T21:01:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:49.497Z","description":"The reshuffle raises questions about how the U.S. intelligence community was allocating its resources ahead of Hamas’ surprise offensive.","url":"https://time.com/6328599/israel-hamas-us-intelligence-analysts/","keywords":["Israel-Hamas War","Israel","uspoliticspolicy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc642b895d1899190/698a41b8096a9416e86ae42a/GettyImages-1745046885.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Bennett","jobTitle":"Bennett is a former senior White House correspondent at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-bennett/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc642b895d1899190/698a41b8096a9416e86ae42a/GettyImages-1745046885.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT","caption":"ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT","creditText":"Menahem Kahana—AFP via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/israel-hamas-war/","name":"Israel-Hamas War"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6328599/israel-hamas-us-intelligence-analysts/","name":"U.S. Military Scrambled to Put More Intel Analysts on Hamas After Oct. 7 Massacre"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Arab Leaders Call for Immediate Ceasefire and End of Gaza Strip Blockade","description":"Arab leaders called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, over fears of a worsening humanitarian crisis.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/49lzxs2K/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-10-25T19:45:15.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/49lzxs2K.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6328599/israel-hamas-us-intelligence-analysts/","duration":"PT3M22S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6328599/israel-hamas-us-intelligence-analysts/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```