The Yediot report, which the paper says was submitted to the Israeli military censor before publication, does not give details of the Jewish state’s surveillance of Iran but it shows what are purportedly the first published images of armed Israeli drones.
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The disclosure could create some tension between Israel and the USA, but the two close allies have traditionally spied on each other, despite pledging not to, the New York Times reported.
According to the documents, interest in the Israeli drones was at its highest during Israeli military operations, and the drones were also monitored for any signs that Israel might be preparing for military action against Iran.
The Heron TP (also known as the IAI Eitan) is a large military drone by Israel Aerospace Industries that is created to carry a variety of payloads and fly through all weather conditions above commercial traffic.
“They collect intelligence in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and throughout the Middle East and were even used according to the editors (of the Snowden files) for gathering intelligence to plan the bombing of Iran”.
The United States and British intelligence services hacked into Israeli drones in order to monitor their activity under a classified program code-named “Anarchist”, the Intercept reported Friday.
An IDF spokesman, speaking on Israeli TV, said Israel had been monitoring a Hamas attempt to build a drone fleet, and that the program had been knocked out. “It means that they have forcibly stripped us, and, no less important, that probably none of our encrypted systems are safe from them”.
The report, based on documents released by former NSA and Central Intelligence Agency agent Edward Snowden, includes images of video footage captured by Anarchist.
Writing for The Intercept, journalists Cora Currier and Henrik Moltke present the most interesting findings of the leaks.
The U.S. and Britain declined to comment on the issue.
In December 2015, a Wall Street Journal report claimed that although the U.S. had promised to stop intercepting the communications of friendly heads of state following Snowden’s revelations, the USA had continued spying on the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, as well as other top Israeli officials.
In one instance in 2008, an NSA internal newsletter boasted of the Anarchist programme successfully collecting video from the cockpit of an Israeli F-16 fighter, the report said.
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A British embassy spokeswoman said it did not comment on intelligence matters, and there was no immediate response from the Foreign Office in London.
