Pentagon raises Israel espionage threat in US to critical

The Pentagon has raised its counterintelligence threat assessment for Israel to “critical” after concerns grew that the close US ally had become more aggressive in spying on US officials. Citing NBC News, as reported by Antara and Republika, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in recent weeks issued a new seven-page assessment that details several specific incidents. The main concern inside the Pentagon is an alleged Israeli effort to monitor senior American officials to learn internal discussions in the Donald Trump administration on Middle East conflicts, including the war with Iran and Israel’s operations in Lebanon. The Israel Embassy in Washington denied the allegation, while the Pentagon declined to comment and a White House official said the report was not true.