The Pentagon has raised its estimates of Israeli espionage activity against the United States to the highest level in history, according to a Saturday report by NBC News citing two US officials.
The report claimed that the Pentagon has raised its counterintelligence threat assessment of Israel to the highest possible, with the main reason being tensions between Israeli and American officials over how to proceed in the war with Iran and its proxy terror groups.
According to the officials cited by NBC, an internal message issued by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency reportedly raised the level for Israel to “critical."
The main concern in the Pentagon seems to be that Israeli agents might attempt to surveil top US officials in order to obtain information on the Trump administration's decisions over the conflict in the Middle East, NBC reported.
The DIA assessment included a seven-page brief on the threat level and even featured charts, according to the NBC sources.
The Jerusalem Post could not verify the NBC report on the Pentagon's espionage threat assessment.
Israel, US call report 'completely false'
The Israeli Embassy of Washington said in a statement that the information of espionage was "completely false," with a spokesperson adding that “Israel does not gather intelligence on American entities, let alone US government officials.”
“Israel intelligence collection efforts are aimed at its enemies, not its allies. Any claims to the contrary are either misinformed or politically motivated,” the statement added.
The Pentagon declined to comment, while the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the Pentagon's DIA, did not respond to NBC's request for comment.
A White House official told NBC that the story was "false and sourced to someone who doesn’t have any knowledge of what’s going on.”