A major new intelligence assessment from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), a component of the Pentagon, has upgraded Israel’s counterintelligence threat rating to the agency’s highest classification, “critical”. The development has pulled back the curtain on deep, previously hidden frictions in a bilateral relationship long framed as an unshakeable cornerstone of U.S. Middle East strategy, with senior American officials decrying widespread, aggressive spying targeting top Trump administration policymakers. The reclassification, first reported by NBC News and The New York Times this past Saturday, comes as sharp public and private rifts have opened between the second Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over the future of the conflict with Iran, escalating tensions between the two supposed closest allies.
Multiple current and former U.S. officials confirmed to NBC News that the DIA distributed an internal notification marking the upgrade, which pushes Israel’s threat ranking higher than that of any other U.S. ally and even outpaces that of several established U.S. adversaries. The designation is rooted in growing alarm within the Pentagon that Israeli intelligence operatives are actively conducting widespread surveillance of senior U.S. officials to steal classified details about internal Trump administration deliberations on military strategy across the entire Middle East. The full assessment includes a 7-page analytical document plus a classified threat chart, one senior administration official told NBC, with the material explicitly noting that Israel’s capabilities for both human espionage and technical signal collection have now reached the unprecedented critical threshold, and cataloging specific recent operations that triggered heightened U.S. concern.
According to reporting from The New York Times, U.S. counterintelligence agencies have specifically tracked Israeli eavesdropping efforts targeting a slate of top U.S. national security officials. These targets include Steve Witkoff, Trump’s lead envoy for Middle East diplomacy, Elbridge A. Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official, and Michael P. DiMino IV, one of Colby’s closest senior deputies. Colby has previously publicly called for a fundamental reset of the U.S.-Israel relationship, a position that has put him at odds with Netanyahu’s government. One senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to NBC News, described the scale and intensity of Israeli intelligence gathering against senior American officials during the second Trump administration as “unhinged”. Current and former officials both emphasized to the outlet that this recent wave of activity goes far beyond the low-level, routine espionage that commonly occurs even between close allied nations.
The timing of the DIA’s assessment adds a layer of geopolitical friction, as Israel currently pushes Congress to approve sweeping new legislation that would deepen military integration between the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors. The proposed provision would bind the two countries closer together in weapons research, development, manufacturing, and cutting-edge defense technology sharing — a change that analysts widely expect would deliver substantial strategic and economic benefits to Israel. The elevated threat rating is now expected to complicate ongoing efforts to expand joint war planning cooperation between U.S. Central Command and the Israeli military, as U.S. officials may move to restrict the flow of sensitive information to Israeli officers amid the new security concerns.
The dispute emerges against the backdrop of a major public split over Middle East war policy. Since a ceasefire between Iran and the U.S.-Israel coalition took effect in early April, the Trump administration has pursued diplomatic negotiations to end the open conflict that launched on February 28. But Netanyahu’s government has openly and aggressively pushed for the U.S. to abandon diplomacy and resume large-scale military attacks on Iran. Netanyahu has also publicly clashed with Trump over Israeli military operations in Lebanon, with Trump pushing the Israeli prime minister to scale back strikes in the country.
This revelation also revives longstanding, unresolved concerns about Israeli espionage on U.S. soil that date back decades. The most famous case dates to the 1980s, when U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard was arrested and ultimately served 30 years in federal prison after being convicted of selling thousands of pages of top-secret classified documents to Israeli handlers. For many U.S. counterintelligence officials, the new critical threat rating confirms that these long-running risks have only escalated in recent years, even as the official bilateral relationship has been framed as closer than ever.
The original reporting was published by Middle East Eye, an outlet that produces independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East, North Africa, and global affairs connected to the region.