In the aftermath of the devastating Twelve-Day War in June 2025, Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib made a striking claim that captured international attention: more than fifty foreign intelligence services had provided direct support to Israel during the conflict. Speaking during an official visit to Iran’s southwestern Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province in October 2025, Khatib characterized this coalition as an “intelligence NATO” that coordinated efforts to destabilize Iran through hybrid warfare encompassing military attacks, psychological operations, cyber warfare, and media campaigns.
His statement came against the backdrop of the Twelve Day War that began on June 13, 2025, when Israel launched surprise attacks on Iranian military and nuclear facilities, killing over 1,000 Iranians. Iran responded with “Operation True Promise 3,” involving twenty-two waves of missile strikes and over 550 ballistic missiles targeting Israeli territory. The United States intervened on June 22 with B-2 bomber strikes on Iranian nuclear sites before a ceasefire was brokered on June 24.
Khatib’s claims, while potentially inflated, align remarkably well with patterns this author previously documented in “The Illusion of Israeli Self-Sufficiency in Intelligence,” which exposed how Israel’s most celebrated operations relied on cooperation with the CIA, NSA cyberwarfare expertise, European intelligence networks, and covert collaboration with Arab regimes. As that analysis demonstrated, Israel’s intelligence empire survives not through independence but through reliance on Western logistics, intelligence sharing, and political approval.
The foundation of this multinational intelligence cooperation traces back decades. According to research covered by Israeli investigative journalists, the Berne Club—a secret European intelligence alliance founded in 1969—provided crucial support for Israel’s assassination campaign following the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. Through an encrypted communication system called “Kilowatt,” thousands of cables were exchanged among eighteen Western intelligence services, functioning as a secret clearinghouse for raw intelligence containing the locations of safe houses, vehicle registrations, the movements of high-value targets, and analytical assessments.
The core of Israel’s intelligence support network begins with the United States and extends through the Five Eyes alliance. The CIA-Mossad relationship dates to the early 1950s, with leaked documents revealing that the NSA shares intelligence with Israel’s Unit 8200 through a formal agreement. Following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, “US intelligence dispatched a special unit to assist the IDF in the war in Gaza and established intelligence-sharing channels with Israel to help locate top Hamas commanders,” according to a report by The Conversation. During Israel’s June 2025 strikes on Iran, the United States joined the operation directly with B-2 bomber strikes.
The United Kingdom maintains similarly close cooperation. GCHQ documents reveal Britain “cooperating very closely with Israel.’ DeClassified UK reported that between 2023-2024, “the RAF conducted 518 surveillance flights over Gaza from Cyprus’s RAF Akrotiri, supplying real-time intelligence to Israeli forces.”
European nations have provided extensive intelligence infrastructure supporting Israeli operations. Germany announced this past summer plans to strengthen cooperation on cyber defense, with Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt outlining a five-point plan for establishing a “Cyber Dome” including “establishing a joint German-Israel cyber research center.”
In 2020, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel agreed to “cooperate in the military and defence area, increase employment and bolster security in this tense area of the Mediterranean.” The Greek Cypriot administration signed defense agreements that “not only enhances the island’s air defense capabilities but also cements” its “role as a forward-operating base for Israeli intelligence and regional security coordination,” providing “early-warning capabilities and a strategic foothold” for monitoring Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Libya.
Perhaps the most striking validation of Khatib’s claims comes from documented intelligence cooperation between Israel and Arab states that publicly condemn it. Leaked U.S. documents revealed the United Arab Emirates (UAE) participated in “a classified regional defense framework known as the ‘Regional Security Construct'” coordinated by U.S. Central Command. According to the Ynet, “at least six Arab states—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar—took part” in this network featuring “information-sharing, joint exercises, and operational coordination.”
Egypt and Jordan participate in the Regional Security Construct. Documents detail “joint training held in Egypt in September, involving forces from the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Greece, India, Britain, and Qatar.”
The Times of Israel has described Morocco’s intelligence relationship with Israel “is among the Middle East and North Africa’s more enduring—and least understood—security partnerships.” Following normalization in December 2020, on November 24, 2021, Israel’s then-Defense Minister Benny Gantz signed in Rabat the first Defense Memorandum of Understanding ever concluded between Israel and an Arab state, a framework both parties described as establishing formal mechanisms for intelligence cooperation. Moroccan military communiqués referenced “expanded cooperation with Israel in these very domains—’intelligence, air defense and electronic warfare.”
Similarly, Azerbaijan has “become an important base for Israeli intelligence” with extensive cooperation focused on Iran, according to a report by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. In February 2012, dozens of Israeli intelligence operatives were reportedly active in Azerbaijan. One Mossad officer admitted, “Last year, we increased our presence, and this has brought us much closer to Iran.” Four years later, an Israeli intelligence analyst confirmed, “Mossad has a large and significant presence in Azerbaijan.
Israel’s intelligence network extends to Asia, where The Diplomat highlighted that “Intelligence collaboration between India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Israel’s Mossad began as early as the 1980s, focused on shared threats from Islamist extremism.” According to a report by Ground Zero, India helped Israel with “on ground human intelligence and logistics” to help it launch pinpoint strikes on Iran during the Twelve-Day War.
In Africa, cooperation between Israel and Ethiopia dates back to the 1950s. It notably forged a 2020 accord establishing bilateral cooperation on counterterrorism operations and intelligence coordination between the two countries.
Though not a NATO member, Israel has been a strategic partner since 1994 with high-level operational access to NATO intelligence structures since 2016. Israel has shared intelligence on Iranian drones with NATO and Ukraine, creating formal linkages that blur the distinction between Israeli operations and broader Western security architecture. This integration validates Khatib’s characterization of an “intelligence NATO”—a formal and informal network where intelligence flows seamlessly between Israel and dozens of partner nations.
The scope of this cooperation extended far beyond passive intelligence sharing during the June 2025 conflict. Israel used an American artificial intelligence model to analyze millions of data points, employed spyware to infiltrate Iranian officials’ communications, recruited operatives from local opposition groups, and established covert drone bases near Tehran—all enabled by extensive intelligence sharing with allies.
As documented in “The Illusion of Israeli Self-Sufficiency in Intelligence,” the February 2008 assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh exemplified this dependency. The Mossad operative would identify Mughniyeh, while the CIA operative would activate the remote detonator. The CIA designed and built the bomb, tested it in North Carolina, and smuggled it into Syria through Jordan. The Stuxnet virus targeting Iran’s Natanz facility represented another collaborative effort, developed jointly by the NSA and Israeli cybersecurity experts and executed under Presidents Bush, Obama, and Prime Ministers Olmert and Netanyahu.
While Esmaeil Khatib’s claim of over fifty foreign intelligence services supporting Israel during the Twelve-Day War may contain elements of propaganda inflation, the documented reality reveals an intelligence cooperation network of stunning breadth. From the Five Eyes alliance to European partners, from covert Arab collaboration to Asian and African partnerships, Israel operates at the center of a vast multinational intelligence apparatus.
Israel’s intelligence record underscores how deeply its operations are embedded in Western power structures. The myths of self-sufficiency and unmatched brilliance collapse under the weight of evidence. Mossad’s reach is extended only because Washington, European capitals, and regional neighbors provide the pipelines of intelligence, technology, and manpower that make its operations possible.
The true scandal lies not in Israel’s dependency but in the willingness of dozens of nations to abet its destabilizing campaigns by supplying the bombs, intelligence streams, and diplomatic cover that allow Tel Aviv to operate with impunity. Whether the exact number is fifty or somewhat less, Khatib’s core assertion stands validated: Israel’s June 2025 strikes on Iran were not the product of isolated Israeli brilliance but rather represented a collective endeavor, outsourced across continents, exposing not a triumph of independence but a parasitic reliance on collaborators who enable its shadow wars.
To strip away the mythology is to confront the uncomfortable truth that Israel’s “miraculous” intelligence victories depend on an extensive network of complicity spanning Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East—an “intelligence NATO” in all but name, where allied services provide the infrastructure, technology, and operational support that sustain Israel’s shadow wars while publicly maintaining plausible deniability.
Behind every Israeli triumph stands a silent alliance of enablers whose loyalty ensures perpetual conflict.
