The White House has apologised for accidentally sharing the identities of elite US forces helping to find and rescue hostages being held by Hamas.
A small group of the Army’s elite counter-terrorism unit is in Israel advising on the hostage situation, with around 200 people, including a dozen Americans, held captive by the terrorists in Gaza.
Joe Biden met with some of the forces during his visit to the country on Wednesday.
A photo of the US president shaking hands with a lineup of troops was later posted on the White House’s official Instagram account.
The photo op with the US president exposed the faces of three other apparent operatives with Delta Force, a tier one unit focused on counter-terrorism.
Delta operatives carry out hostage rescue, direct action raids, reconnaissance and other special missions.
Pentagon policy is to protect the names and identities of special operators. Very few photographs of Delta Force operatives are in the public domain.
A distinctive set of tattoos could be seen on the soldier shaking hands with Mr Biden, according to the New York Post.
The photograph was on the White House’s social media feed, which has around 7.6 million followers, for more than an hour and received thousands of “likes” before officials were alerted to it.
“As soon as this was brought to our attention, we immediately deleted the photo,” a White House official said. “We regret the error and any issues this may have caused.”
A similar blunder occurred in 2018 when Donald Trump and his White House communications team shared a video of the then-president meeting with US service members in a surprise visit to al-Asad air base in Iraq.
Mr Trump was criticised at the time for jeopardising the safety of Navy Seals by posing for photos with them.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the photograph but has previously confirmed it had special forces operating in Israel.
“We are providing planning and intelligence support to the Israelis as it pertains to hostage recovery,” a spokesman said.
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