(October 29, 2024)
Delays in the Palestine investigation trace back to 2015 when former ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda initiated a preliminary examination. Although the investigation met the necessary criteria in 2019, it was postponed due to jurisdiction debates over Palestinian territories. The formal investigation began in March 2021, yet no meaningful progress has been made, further delaying requests against Netanyahu and Gallant.
(May 28, 2024)
Thanks to their comprehensive access to Palestinian telecoms infrastructure, the sources said, intelligence operatives could capture the calls without installing spyware on the ICC official’s devices.
“If Fatou Bensouda spoke to any person in the West Bank or Gaza, then that phone call would enter [intercept] systems,” one source said. Another said there was no hesitation internally over spying on the prosecutor, adding: “With Bensouda, she’s black and African, so who cares?”
The surveillance system did not capture calls between ICC officials and anyone outside Palestine. However, multiple sources said the system required the active selection of the overseas phone numbers of ICC officials whose calls Israeli intelligence agencies decided to listen to.
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.
In The Hague, Bensouda and her senior staff were alerted by security advisers and via diplomatic channels that Israel was monitoring their work.
(May 28, 2024)
Die Haftbefehle für Benjamin Netanyahu und Yoav Gallant, die der internationale Strafgerichtshof (IStGH) letzte Woche ausgeschrieben hatte, beziehen sich zwar auf Verbrechen, die die israelische Führung während des neuen Gaza-Krieges begangen haben soll, die Untersuchungen begannen aber bereits 2015.
Damals eröffnete die damalige Chefanklägerin des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs, Fatou Bensouda, die Überprüfung von Vorwürfen gegen Einzelpersonen im Gazastreifen, im Westjordanland und in Ostjerusalem.
(May 28, 2024)
The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.
Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.
That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.
(…)
After the surprise meeting with Kabila and Bensouda in New York, Cohen repeatedly phoned the chief prosecutor and sought meetings with her, three sources recalled. According to two people familiar with the situation, at one stage Bensouda asked Cohen how he had obtained her phone number, to which he replied: “Did you forget what I do for a living?”
Armed movement says agency was responsible for planning pager explosions and assassinations of senior leaders
(December 10, 2023)
Just weeks before Hamas launched the deadly Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the head of Mossad arrived in Doha, Qatar, for a meeting with Qatari officials.
(…)
Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza, the eventual launching point of the Oct. 7 attacks, and keep Hamas focused on governing, not fighting.
The Qatari payments, while ostensibly a secret, have been widely known and discussed in the Israeli news media for years.
(November 30, 2023)
The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.
(…)
Last year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border with Gaza, said that Hamas’s intentions were unclear.
“It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment reviewed by The Times.
(December 16, 2023)
Israeli leaders believed that Hamas was more interested in governing than fighting. By the time the agents discovered the ledgers in 2018, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was encouraging the government of Qatar to deliver millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip. He gambled that the money would buy stability and peace.
Mr. Levy recalled briefing Mr. Netanyahu personally in 2015 about the Hamas portfolio.
Unnamed senior officials tell Channel 12 news that mediators in ceasefire-hostage deal talks have decided to set aside the thorny issue of Israel’s presence in two Gaza corridors under a potential agreement, and are focusing on other matters.
Egypt stressed to all concerned parties its rejection to any Israeli presence in Rafah Border Crossing or Philadelphi Corridor, a high-profile source told Egyptian media Monday.
After a week of being very careful regarding statements directed at Iran, the US gave Israel something to be satisfied about on Wednesday. US President Joe Biden said America’s commitment to Israel’s security, amid the threats from Iran and its proxies, is “ironclad.”
Biden’s statements are aimed directly at Iran, and it’s certainly possible that they’re the result of a worrying intelligence assessment Israel presented to the US.
Gen. Erik Kurilla, commander of the U.S. Central Command, is expected to meet Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and senior Israel Defense Forces officials.
Israeli officials say they are preparing for a possible unprecedented direct attack from Iranian soil using ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles against Israeli targets.
In such a scenario, Israel will retaliate with a direct attack against Iran, the officials said.
The US has been tight-lipped in its public reaction to the Apr 1 strike, saying it has not determined whether Israel struck a diplomatic facility, which would breach international agreements on the inviolability of embassies and consulates.
The US and its allies believe major missile or drone strikes by Iran or its proxies against military and government targets in Israel are imminent, in what would mark a significant widening of the six-month-old conflict, according to people familiar with the intelligence.
(Nov. 26, 2010)
In the aforesaid period Netanyahu served as deputy to Moshe Arens, when he was Israel‘s ambassador to Washington, D.C. (1982-83 ).
(…)
The recently revealed documents deal with an operation dubbed „Tipped Kettle,“ involving weapons the Israel Defense Forces looted from the Palestine Liberation Organization during Operation Peace for Galilee in Lebanon, and their transfer to the Contras – opponents of the socialistic Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
(…)
Part II was patently illegal – a blatant effort by the White House to violate a Congressional order and to cook up a strange deal involving the sale of American weapons (originally supplied to the IDF ) to anti-American Iran, for use in its war with Iraq; the release of Western hostages being held in Lebanon by Iranian-controlled Hezbollah; and the financing of Contras‘ activities thanks to the difference between the sum paid by the Iranians and the true value of the weapons – minus a profit for those engaged in the deal.
(…)
The CIA had direct intelligence connections with the Mossad, but in the affair of the captured weapons the American agency preferred to hide behind the Pentagon.
(12.01.2024)
UANI’s board is a who’s who of high state, military and intelligence officials from around the Western world. Among its more notable members include:
– CEO Mark Wallace, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and deputy campaign manager for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection.
– Chairman Joe Lieberman, former senator and Democratic vice-presidential nominee for the 2000 election.
Tamir Pardo, Director of the Mossad, 2011-2016.
Dennis Ross, former State Department Director of Policy Planning and former Middle East Envoy under George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Field Marshall Lord Charles Guthrie, ex-Chief of Staff of the U.K. Armed Forces.
– Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida.
– August Hanning, President of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), 1998-2005; State Secretary at the Federal Interior Ministry, 2005-2009.
– Zohar Palti, former head of the Political-Military Bureau, Israeli Ministry of Defense; former Director of Intelligence of the Mossad.
– Frances Townsend, Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush.
– John Bolton, former U.S. National Security Advisor and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
– Roger Noriega, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and Ambassador to the Organization of American States.
– Otto Reich, former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and architect of the 2002 U.S. coup against Venezuela.
– Michael Singh, White House Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs, 2007-2008.
– Giulio Terzi di Sant-Agata, former Italian Foreign Minister.
– Robert Hill, former Minister of Defense of Australia.
– Jack David, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2004-2006.
– Mark Kirk, U.S. Senator for Illinois, 2010-2017.
– Lt. Gen. Sir Graeme Lamb, ex-Director of U.K. Special Forces and Commander of the British Field Army.
– Norman Roule, former CIA Division Chief and National Intelligence Manager for Iran at the Director of National Intelligence.
– Irwin Cotler, Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General, 2003-2006.
– Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, U.K. Minister of State for Security and Counter Terrorism, 2010-2011.
(15.01.2024)
(16.12.2023)
Israeli leaders believed that Hamas was more interested in governing than fighting. By the time the agents discovered the ledgers in 2018, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was encouraging the government of Qatar to deliver millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip. He gambled that the money would buy stability and peace.
Mr. Levy recalled briefing Mr. Netanyahu personally in 2015 about the Hamas portfolio.
(30.11.2023)
The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.
(…)
Last year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border with Gaza, said that Hamas’s intentions were unclear.
“It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment reviewed by The Times.
But recent intelligence has shown the extent to which Hamas has been able to build many of its rockets and anti-tank weaponry out of the thousands of munitions that failed to detonate when Israel lobbed them into Gaza, according to weapons experts and Israeli and Western intelligence officials. Hamas is also arming its fighters with weapons stolen from Israeli military bases.
Intelligence gathered during months of fighting revealed that, just as the Israeli authorities misjudged Hamas’s intentions before Oct. 7, they also underestimated its ability to obtain arms.
(November 30, 2023)
“Nothing happens by accident,” said another source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
According to the investigation, another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can “generate” targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a “mass assassination factory.”
(16.12.2023)
Israeli leaders believed that Hamas was more interested in governing than fighting. By the time the agents discovered the ledgers in 2018, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was encouraging the government of Qatar to deliver millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip. He gambled that the money would buy stability and peace.
Mr. Levy recalled briefing Mr. Netanyahu personally in 2015 about the Hamas portfolio.
(September 2003)
Die Abwicklung von Rüstungstransfers über die Auslandsgeheimdienste Mossad und BND verstärkte die Tendenz zu vertraulicher Kooperation. Die entsprechenden Kooperationsstrukturen gewährleisteten Flexibilität bei der Durchführung der Geschäfte und minimierten die Notwendigkeit, eine öffentliche Debatte über die bilaterale Rüstungskooperation zu führen.
Mit der Vereinigung Deutschlands und der Auflösung des Warschauer Paktes veränderten sich auch die sicherheitspolitischen Rahmenbedingungen der deutsch-israelischen Rüstungskooperation. Die neuen militärische Aufgaben und damit verbundene Anforderungen an die Rüstungsindustrie hatten eine Transformation der Rüstungskooperationsbeziehungen zur Folge. Gegenwärtig zeichnen sich drei wesentliche Tendenzen ab: …
(30.11.2023)
The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.
(…)
Last year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border with Gaza, said that Hamas’s intentions were unclear.
“It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment reviewed by The Times.
The proposal is under discussion as part of US, Qatari and Egyptian efforts to revive a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas like the one that brought a short-lived truce to the enclave, according to the Wall Street Journal.
CIA Director William Burns traveled to Warsaw, Poland on Monday for talks with Israeli Mossad chief David Barnea, and the Qatari prime minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani as part of the talks.
Mossad chief David Barnea met overnight with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Oslo amid efforts to bring about a deal for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Barnea also met with Egyptian officials.
However, the report says that even though the documents were shared in Jerusalem and Washington, nothing was done to disrupt the operations.
“Everyone is talking about failures of intelligence on Oct. 7, but no one is talking about the failure to stop the money,” Udi Levy, a former chief of Mossad’s economic warfare division, tells the paper “It’s the money — the money — that allowed this.”
The report says that the funds totaled some $500 million.
Levy says he briefed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015 about Hamas’s finances.
Israeli leaders believed that Hamas was more interested in governing than fighting. By the time the agents discovered the ledgers in 2018, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was encouraging the government of Qatar to deliver millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip. He gambled that the money would buy stability and peace.
Mr. Levy recalled briefing Mr. Netanyahu personally in 2015 about the Hamas portfolio.
(November 30, 2023)
“Nothing happens by accident,” said another source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
According to the investigation, another reason for the large number of targets, and the extensive harm to civilian life in Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can “generate” targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a “mass assassination factory.”
(30.11.2023)
Their investigation is „based on conversations with seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community — including military intelligence and air force personnel who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Strip — in addition to Palestinian testimonies, data, and documentation from the Gaza Strip, and official statements by the IDF Spokesperson and other Israeli state institutions.“
The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.
(…)
Last year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border with Gaza, said that Hamas’s intentions were unclear.
“It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment reviewed by The Times.
(01.12.2023 16:29 Uhr)
Laut New York Times war der Bericht weiten Kreisen der israelischen Sicherheitskräfte zugänglich – neben den Angriffsplänen habe er auch geheime Informationen über die israelische Armee und deren Kommunikation enthalten. Wie die Hamas an solch sicherheitsrelevante Informationen kommen konnte, sei unklar.
Qatar‘s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said Tuesday that the country was „working to strengthen the Qatari mediation role in reaching a truce and then a permanent ceasefire.“
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns‘ visit to Qatar reported on Tuesday highlights seriousness of the ongoing negotiations. The CIA chief will meet the Mossad director in Doha.
A well-informed source told Al Qahera News that officials from Egypt, Qatar, the United States, and Israel would meet Tuesday in Doha to discuss the extension of the current temporary ceasefire in Gaza.
Another person familiar with the trip said the CIA director would be joined in Doha by the director of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad, David Barnea, and the Director of Egyptian General Intelligence, Abbas Kamel.
“Contrary to the false claims: Under no circumstances and at no stage was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of Hamas’s war intentions,” read the original tweet, posted shortly after 1 a.m. local time, hours after Netanyahu held a joint press conference with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz.
The tweet elaborated: “On the contrary, all the security officials, including the head of military intelligence and the head of the Shin Bet, assessed that Hamas had been deterred and was looking for a settlement. This assessment was submitted again and again to the prime minister and the cabinet by all the security forces and intelligence community, up until the outbreak of the war.”
(18.02.2023)
The talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which are backed by the U.S., were held before the U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council Working Group gathering in Riyadh, which was focused on defense and security, Bloomberg reported several anonymous sources involved in the meetings as saying.
More meetings between the two countries are expected to occur this weekend in Prague, during the Munich Security Conference, according to several of the sources.