Pentagon sets Israel threat at critical over US spying

The Pentagon has reportedly elevated Israel's counterintelligence threat designation to its highest level, citing concerns that Israeli intelligence is aggressively surveilling senior U.S. officials to gain insight into the Trump administration's internal deliberations. The White House and the Israeli government have both issued strong denials of the report.

According to current and former U.S. officials, the Defense Intelligence Agency recently raised Israel's threat level to "critical" and circulated an internal seven-page assessment. The document concludes that Israel's capacity for both human espionage and technical intelligence collection is operating at that top tier. The assessment reportedly details several incidents that heightened concern, though officials said no single event triggered the reclassification.

A White House official dismissed the report as false and said it was sourced from individuals lacking knowledge of internal developments. A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington stated that Israel does not gather intelligence on American entities or officials, adding that its intelligence operations are directed at adversaries, not allies.