Israeli officials are angry over a Signal chat leak that exposed sensitive intelligence Israel shared with the US from a human source in Yemen, CBS News reported on Friday.
On Tuesday, CBS News released unclassified internal documents from a National Security Council bulletin highlighting weaknesses in using the Signal app despite its encryption. The bulletin had been broadly circulated to NSC staff a month before US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz set up the Signal chat group.
The leak of the Signal chat messages angered Israeli officials, according to anonymous sources, as it compromised a human intelligence source they had shared with the US for targeting, despite the airstrike’s effectiveness remaining intact.
According to a senior American intelligence official and a source familiar with Israel’s frustration, despite the publication’s caution in releasing the information, it compromised a human source who had provided intelligence for Israel, who then shared it with the US for targeting.
Earlier this month, there was a plan to use US military planes and drones to strike targets in Yemen. These operations were supposed to protect shipping routes and target Houthi terrorists who were a threat to Israel.
Israel provided information to help target the Iranian-backed Houthis, but the chat, set up by Waltz, was mistakenly made public, compromising the information. Waltz accidentally added The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the group chat.
Exposing sensitive information
The conversations were between high-ranking US officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and members of the National Security Council. They discussed specific military actions, including airstrikes using planes and drones.
US intelligence officials, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, testified that no classified information was shared in the chat.
However, they acknowledged that the information was still sensitive. Still, experts say that even unclassified information like this should not be shared through unsecured methods like the Signal app.
Testifying before a House panel, Gabbard said the conversation was “sensitive” but again denied that classified information was shared in the chat, saying, “There were no sources, methods, locations, or war plans that were shared.”