Israel on Thursday denied a claim from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) that Egyptian intelligence warned Israel about the wide-scale Hamas terrorist attack three days before it happened.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first denied the report on Monday after Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people, including at least 25 U.S. citizens, on Saturday.
He called the story "fake news and false propaganda that is published with the aim of scaring us and dividing us," as translated. He also said Egyptian intelligence "did not exist and was not created."
McCaul contradicted Netanyahu on Wednesday regarding the purported intelligence report after a closed-door congressional briefing on the crisis.
"I'm not quite sure how we missed it. I'm not quite sure how Israel missed it. I know that Egypt warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen. We know that this had been planned perhaps as long as a year ago," McCaul said.
Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari on Thursday said, "There was no such warning. The signs that came up hours before could be based on different intelligence signs," according to "The Times of Israel."
News reports on whether Israel was warned before the attack remain unclear, as anonymous sources are saying different things.
Egyptian media closely linked to the nation's intelligence services on Wednesday cited senior security sources who denied Israeli news reports that the country was warned before the attack, according to an earlier report from the Times.
An Egyptian official, meanwhile, told the outlet that its intelligence service had warned Israeli counterparts about a large attack before Hamas's massacre. The official also speculated that Netanyahu may not have received the warning.
