‘Spying among friends’? Pentagon’s SECRET Israel alert revives explosive Snowden claims

The US Department of Defence has raised its internal counterintelligence threat level concerning Israel to the highest possible tier, according to two current US officials and one former official familiar with the matter. The move follows what officials described as a significant escalation in espionage activity targeting American federal systems and reflects growing concern within the US national security establishment over surveillance operations attributed to its closest West Asia ally.

The officials said the policy shift highlights the increasingly fraught balance between public strategic cooperation and private counterintelligence competition. Although Washington and Tel Aviv continue to present a close security partnership built on intelligence sharing and joint counter-terrorism efforts, the Pentagon has reportedly intensified defensive measures against Israeli intelligence activity on US networks.

Snowden-era documents cited as historical backdrop

The latest alarm has also revived debate over the extent of Israeli espionage against the United States. Declassified NSA documents from 2007, later made public through disclosures associated with whistleblower Edward Snowden, identified Israel as one of the most aggressive foreign intelligence threats targeting US government systems, according to officials and analysts familiar with the material.

Those records indicated that US counterintelligence agencies were already tracking sophisticated efforts to penetrate sensitive government infrastructure nearly two decades ago, establishing what security officials describe as a long-running pattern of unauthorised intelligence collection directed at American targets.

Defence systems and banking networks seen as key targets

Current and historical assessments point to the Defence Department as a primary target of the alleged espionage campaign. Officials said the operations have focused on obtaining military technology, communications records and strategic logistics information from internal defence networks.

Analysts also cited concern about intrusions into financial-sector systems. Access to banking databases could provide foreign operatives with visibility into international transaction flows, economic telemetry and other data valuable for trade and policy intelligence, according to security specialists familiar with the threat assessments.

A zero-trust alliance

The decision to place Israel-related counterintelligence concerns at the Pentagon’s top internal threat tier underscores what officials describe as a dual-track relationship: close diplomatic and military cooperation on one hand, and aggressive cyber-defence measures on the other. US cyber-security teams are said to operate under a “zero-trust” posture when protecting defence communications and federal networks, applying stringent safeguards regardless of alliance status.

Neither the Pentagon nor Israeli authorities have publicly confirmed the reported threat-level change. The officials who discussed the matter did so on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak about internal counterintelligence assessments.