The Pentagon has raised Israel’s counterintelligence threat level to its highest category, amid growing alarm that Washington’s supposed closest Middle East ally is intensifying efforts to spy on senior US officials.

The warning, reported by NBC News and The New York Times on Saturday, exposes behind the scenes tensions in a relationship Washington often treats as untouchable.

The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency recently issued the new assessment as tensions grow between the Trump administration and Israel over the Israeli-US war on Iran.

US officials told NBC that the DIA posted an internal message raising Israel’s threat level to “critical”.