Israel carries out spying war against ICC

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.

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.

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 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.