This Wednesday, Christopher Wray, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), made his first visit to Israel since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on October 7. During this unannounced trip, he met with his counterparts to address the threats facing both countries.
Wray held talks with officials from the Mossad (Israel's intelligence agency), Shin Bet (Israel's equivalent of the FBI) and the Israel National Police, an anonymous source familiar with the FBI director's trip revealed.
"We're working with all our partners to confront the elevated threat picture, which includes, I should add, the threats posed by Iran and Hezbollah, both in terms of the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, and more broadly," Wray revealed shortly after in an interview for Fox News Digital.
The FBI director reported that several terrorist organizations have already been identified as not only praising Hamas attacks but also threatening to attack U.S. interests. He also assured that the agency continues to work "around the clock" to "identify and disrupt additional threats that we're seeing emanating from the conflict."
During his remarks, the FBI director stressed that his trip was crucial to demonstrate that the United States remains committed to providing support to its partners and to ensure the continued close collaboration between the agencies to investigate terrorist attacks against civilians in Israel thoroughly.
It should be recalled that following the October 7 attacks, Israeli authorities reported that Hamas killed approximately 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 others, including dual U.S. citizens. Since then, the United States has established a CIA task force to assist Israel in pursuing key Hamas leaders, and other U.S. intelligence agencies have raised the priority of intelligence gathering on this terrorist group.
The CIA also actively participated in hostage release negotiations in the Gaza Strip.
"I'm proud of the incredible support the team has provided to our partners during this dark time. The FBI's partnership with our Israeli counterparts is long-standing, close and robust. Whenever we meet and talk, these are deeply substantive conversations across a whole range of common threats between countries," he said.
Following his visit to Israel, Director Wray headed to Germany to participate in the Munich Security Conference.
"A serious national security threat"
Just this Wednesday, Mike Turner, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, urged President Joe Biden to declassify information related to what he describes as "a serious national security threat." While no specific details were provided about the warning, Turner stressed the importance of sharing the information to allow both the Biden Administration and U.S. allies to make decisions in response to the threat.
In his statement, the Republican representative said, "Today, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has made available to all Members of Congress information concerning a serious national security threat. I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat."
