The United States recently sent a Marine general and other military officers to Israel in preparation for its planned invasion of the Gaza Strip, Axios reported Monday.

An anonymous Israeli official informed the outlet that the U.S. sent over Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James F. Glynn, who once headed the branch's special operations and was involved in the effort to defeat ISIS.

Glynn is not allowed to direct operations and is not expected to stay in Israel to follow the Israel Defense Forces' ground invasion, other anonymous U.S. and Israeli officials said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Defense later confirmed that U.S. officials were helping to advise the Israeli military but stopped short of confirming Glynn's involvement.

"We have asked several officials with relevant experience simply to help Israeli officials think through the difficult questions ahead and explore their options," the spokesperson said. "The IDF will, as always, make its own decisions."

Retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the National Security Council's coordinator for strategic communications, also admitted to reporters Monday that some American officers were in Israel.

"There are a few relevant military officers with experience — the kinds of experience that we believe is appropriate to the sorts of operations that Israel is conducting and may conduct in the future — to go over there to share some perspectives from their experience and to ask the hard questions," Kirby stated.

"The same hard questions that we've been asking our Israeli counterparts since the beginning," he added.

Israel has continuously signaled that it intends to launch a full-scale ground invasion into Gaza as retaliation for the Oct. 7 massacre carried out by the terrorist group Hamas, which controls the blockaded region.

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