Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel address a press conference at the chancellery in Berlin, October 21, 2015. (AFP/Tobias Schwarz)
Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has been spying on Israel in recent years, specifically the Prime Minister’s Office, German newspaper Der Spiegel reported Saturday.
The report noted that other targets of the BND included the US State Department, the British Defense Ministry, NASA, the US Air Force, and the interior ministries of Austria and Belgium.
There were no further details on the alleged information collected from Israel, or when the reported espionage took place.
In October the German government was put on the defensive after reports surfaced that the BND spied on the United States and other allies.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement to the press at his office in Jerusalem, March 23, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
Der Spiegel, public broadcaster rbb-Inforadio and the Sueddeutsche daily reported then that until the fall of 2013 the BND’s selectors included targets belonging to the United States and other European countries.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
The selectors were reportedly wiped from the agency’s list of targets around the same time German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that “spying among friends, that’s just wrong” in response to claims her cellphone had been tapped by the US National Security Agency.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a speech during a regional meeting of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party on January 30, 2016 in Neubrandenburg, northeastern Germany. (AFP/dpa/Bernd Settnik)
In November Berlin said it was moving to impose tighter rules on the country’s foreign intelligence agency in light of the allegations.
Clemens Binninger, a lawmaker with Merkel’s party, said at the time that “we will certainly protect European governments and institutions” from spying by the agency.
Advertisement
AP contributed to this report.
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this,please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
