There is concern in the United States that intelligence provided by Washington to Israel is being used to kill civilians in Gaza. At issue is a secret memorandum that expanded intelligence sharing with Israel after the October 7 Hamas attacks which is prompting increasing questions from Democratic lawmakers and human-rights groups, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the issue.
Among the worries is that there is little independent oversight to confirm that U.S.-supplied intelligence isn’t used in air strikes and other operations in which civilians are killed or infrastructure is damaged.
“What I’m concerned about is making sure our intelligence sharing is consistent with our values and our national-security interests,” Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told the WSJ. He added that he met separately with a senior Israeli military figure and U.S. intelligence officials and said there were “some pretty big inconsistencies” in the two sides’ accounts of the civilian death toll.
According to the WSJ, citing U.S. officials, intelligence sharing with Israel is conducted under a secret memorandum issued by the White House issued shortly after the October 7 Hamas massacre and then amended a few days later. At about the same time, the U.S. expanded its intelligence collection on Gaza, since it had relied on Israeli intelligence on the strip in recent years.
At the start of the war, according to sources familiar with the matter, the U.S. intelligence community formulated guidelines for sharing intelligence with Israeli counterparts, but senior White House officials were the ones who ultimately determined whether any violation had occurred.
It was also reported that the US intelligence agencies are collecting cases of possible violations of the "laws of armed conflict" by both sides in the war, as part of a bi-weekly report titled “Gaza Crisis Potential Wrongful Acts Summary,” which describes specific incidents and trends related to the fighting.
The support of the American spy agencies in Israel, the WSJ reported, is mainly intended to help locate the leaders of the military wing of Hamas, find the hostages held by the terrorist organization and watch Israel's borders. The US shares so-called "raw intelligence," such as live video feeds from intelligence-gathering drones over Gaza with Israel's security agencies.
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Soldiers of the Nahal Brigade operate near Al Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
The U.S., the newspaper adds, does not share intelligence specifically intended for ground or airstrike operations in Israel's military campaign in Gaza. "Our intelligence sharing focuses on hostage recovery efforts and preventing future invasions of Israel. This includes monitoring recruitment or movement near the border," an administration official told the WSJ.
U.S. officials familiar with the secret October memorandum said that Israel is required to ensure that U.S. intelligence is not used in ways that cause unacceptable civilian casualties, or damage to civilian infrastructure.