Department reports raise concerns about increased espionage activity amid US-Israeli war with Iran, ceasefire talks.
The Pentagon’s intelligence arm has raised the assessed threat level on Israeli spying from “high” to “critical” in recent weeks, according to US media.
NBC News first broke news of the change on Friday, with The New York Times issuing its own report the following day.
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The news outlets cited anonymous sources as saying the switch came in light of concerns over increasingly aggressive tactics related to the US-Israeli war with Iran.
They said the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had raised the alert level amid fears that Israel is increasingly attempting to surveil top US officials. The aim is allegedly to understand internal White House deliberations about ending the war.
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu have publicly diverged in their approach to the war, which the US and Israel started on February 28.
Trump, on one hand, has repeatedly said he wants to bring the war to a close, amid mounting political pressure at home.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, has called for war to resume, despite an April 8 ceasefire. The fighting has been mostly paused since the temporary truce was announced, but efforts to reach a lasting agreement have repeatedly stalled.
The New York Times reported that, while Israel has been known to spy on the US, the DIA cited an uptick in activities beginning in late 2024, as the administration of US President Joe Biden increased pressure on Israel over its genocidal war in Gaza.
That increase continued into 2025, as Trump returned to the presidency and began deliberating about how to approach Iran.
The newspaper added that other recent intelligence assessments have also documented evidence that there are Israeli efforts to monitor Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff as well as Elbridge Colby, a top policy official at the Pentagon, and his deputy Michael DiMino IV.
Witkoff had been the lead negotiator in nuclear talks that preceded the initial US-Israeli attack on Iran in February.
Both NBC News and The New York Times cited unnamed US officials in their reports. The US Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera.
However, an unnamed spokesperson told both news organisations that the reports were “false”.
Still, the reported concerns are likely to raise questions over the close intelligence and military coordination between Israel and the US.
Washington has, for years, provided billions in military aid and weapons sales to Israel, including throughout the genocide in Gaza.
The US Congress is also currently debating a section of a new defence bill, which would integrate the two countries’ research and development for weaponry to an unprecedented degree.
While the US and its allies are known to regularly conduct intelligence operations on each other, officials told both NBC and The New York Times that Israel’s recent vigour was unique.
The New York Times reported that the increased DIA designation surpasses all current allies, as well as a handful of countries with more fraught relations.
Recent incidents included Israel’s military intelligence trying to plant listening devices at the DIA headquarters in 2021, according to the newspaper.
In 2025, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, was found to have tried to plant a similar device in a Secret Service vehicle, the report said.
