US special forces prepared to deploy in Gaza but lacked intel: Report

US special forces were prepared to deploy in the Gaza Strip in October to rescue captives held by Hamas but lacked enough intelligence, current and former American officials told the Washington Post. 

“If we managed to unilaterally get information that we could act on, and we thought we could actually get US people out alive, we could act, but there was genuinely very little information specifically about US hostages,” one official said.

The latest report adds more information on the planned deployment first reported by journalist Jack Murphy on his Substack, “The High Side.”

Murphy said in November that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted one of the biggest deployments in its history to the Eastern Mediterranean after being told by the Defence Department that the Biden administration wanted to see “something” in terms of a plan of action to rescue the American citizens held in Gaza.

However, after those forces arrived to the region, the chances of launching a captive rescue mission decreased due to "both the quality of the intelligence available and the shifting priorities of the Israeli and US governments," according to Murphy.