Israel ‘tampered’ with French PM’s cellphone — report
Paris diplomats say phones, laptop stopped working after they turned equipment over to Israeli security before Valls’ private meeting with Netanyahu; Israel denies story
Tamar Pileggi is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
Israeli intelligence services allegedly hacked into French Prime Minister Manuel Valls’s cellphone during a diplomatic visit to Jerusalem in May, a French news magazine reported Thursday.
The report in L’Express claimed that Valls and his advisers were required by Israeli officials to turn over their cellphones and other electronic devices to security agents prior to a closed-door meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Jerusalem office on May 23.
Afterward, several members of the diplomatic delegation noticed their devices — several phones and a laptop — were not working correctly and showed signs of “tampering,” according to the report.
Back in Paris, the devices were handed over to France’s National Agency for Cybersecurity to investigate the claims.
The national security agency has yet to publish its findings, and declined to comment on magazine’s claims.
Netanyahu’s office swiftly denied the L’Express report, saying in a statement the incident “absolutely never happened.”
“Israel sees France as a friend and passes intelligence information according to the need. It does not spy on her,” the Prime Minister’s Office statement read, according to the Hebrew-language daily Ynet.
Valls’s office also appeared to dismiss concerns of the reported espionage, telling the magazine that the checking of diplomats’ phones upon their return from foreign countries was routine procedure.
