US Secretly Sent 'Targeting Officers' To Aid Israel's War In Gaza

The US Air Force is discreetly providing Israel with intelligence for its brutal assault on Gaza and has deployed “intelligence engagement officers on the ground,” The Intercept has reported, citing a deployment order obtained under Washington’s Freedom of Information Act. 

“The information used to conduct airstrikes and fire long-range artillery weapons — has played a central role in Israel’s siege of Gaza. A document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act suggests that the U.S. Air Force sent officers specializing in this exact form of intelligence to Israel in late November,” the outlet wrote. 

Just days after Hamas' Oct.7 attack, US President Joe Biden announced that his administration would share intelligence and deploy experts from across the US to “advise the Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts.”

But on November 21, the US Air Force issued deployment guidelines for officers being sent to Israel, which The Intercept said would be used “to provide satellite intelligence to the Israelis for the purpose of offensive targeting.” 

Lawrence Cline, a former US intelligence engagement officer in Iraq, told the outlet that those being sent are “targeting officers.” The document cited by The Intercept provides specific instructions to US Air Force officers – some of whom specialize in providing sensitive intelligence to the Israeli army. 

Rights groups say the US is complicit in Israeli war crimes by aiding it militarily and providing it with intelligence to help it target Palestinians in Gaza. 

“As a general matter, US officials who are providing support to another country during armed conflict would want to make sure they are not aiding and abetting war crimes,” said Brian Finucane of the Crisis Group NGO. 

In mid-November, a New York-based rights group filed a suit against Biden’s government for “failure to prevent and complicity in the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide” in Gaza. Nonetheless, despite publicly urging Israel to protect civilians, Washington continues to fuel the Israeli war effort. 

As of early December, Washington had already provided Tel Aviv with roughly 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells. This includes 100 BLU-109, 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs which have killed scores of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.