Recent US intelligence reports have raised concerns about Israeli spy agencies eavesdropping on American negotiators working on a peace deal with Iran, amid rising concern over a more general counterintelligence threat by Israel, the New York Times reports.

It noted that while Israel and the US have “long known, and tolerated, that each was spying on the other”, some American officials say that an intensified Israeli effort to learn about US positions in talks with Iran has crossed a line.

The reports include concerns that Israel has stepped up its efforts to eavesdrop on senior American officials, including Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s top negotiator, Elbridge A. Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy official, and one of his main deputies, Michael P. DiMino IV.

Another report, written by the Defence Intelligence Agency and other military intelligence offices, said that the counterintelligence threat level posed by Israel had been increased in recent weeks to the top level, from high to critical.