Israel carries out decade-long 'spying war' against ICC - Guardian report

Israel has allegedly carried out a decade-long spying “war” against the ICC, according to an exclusive report by the British newspaper The Guardian on Tuesday.

The report follows an additional report released by The Guardian on Tuesday morning which claimed former Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen ‘threatened’ an ICC prosecutor over war crimes inquiry.

The Guardian investigation, run in conjunction with Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call, reported that Israel “deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries.”

According to the report, Israeli intelligence intercepted the phone calls. Messages, emails and documents of ICC officials including Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan and his predecessor Fatou Bensouda. This intelligence allegedly provided Benjamin Netanyahu with advanced knowledge of the ICC’s plans.

PM obsessed with intercepting information

The Guardian states that a recent intercepted communication between Khan and another party shows that the Prosecutor planned to issue arrest warrants but was under “tremendous pressure from the United States.”

According to an intelligence source, Netanyahu has paid keen attention to the ongoing spy operations against the ICC, and was described by the source as being “obsessed” with intercepting information. Alongside his national security advisers, the operation involved the Shin Bet, as well as the military’s intelligence branch, and the cyber-intelligence division, Unit 8200. 

The Guardian also claims that the acquired intelligence was “disseminated to government ministries of justice, foreign affairs and strategic affairs.”

The Guardian contacted a spokesperson for the ICC, who claimed to be aware of “proactive intelligence-gathering activities being undertaken by a number of national agencies hostile towards the court”.

The ICC allegedly put in place countermeasures against such activity, and claimed that none of the spying attempts had penetrated the court’s core evidence holdings, which had remained secure.

According to The Guardian, a spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister’s office said: “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the state of Israel.” A military spokesperson added: “The IDF did not and does not conduct surveillance or other intelligence operations against the ICC.”

Further details

The report stated that Israel’s comprehensive access to Palestinian telecoms infrastructure enabled intelligence operatives to capture calls ‘without installing spyware on the ICC official’s devices.”

According to “one Israeli source,” a “large whiteboard in an Israeli intelligence department contained the names of about 60 people under surveillance – half of them Palestinians and half from other countries, including UN officials and ICC personnel.”

The Guardian also alleged that “Israeli sources” reported that military cyber-offensive teams and the Shin Bet “monitored the employees of Palestinian NGOs and the Palestinian Authority who were engaging with the ICC”. This supposedly included the installation of Pegasus spyware on the phones of multiple Palestinian NGO employees.