Israeli officials furious that Signal group chat exposed intelligence, sources say
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Washington — Israeli officials are furious over the Signal chat leak involving senior Trump administration officials because it included sensitive intelligence Israel provided to the U.S. from a human intelligence source in Yemen, CBS News has learned.
While the Signal chat messages published by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic this week may not have compromised the effectiveness of the airstrike, given the publication’s restraint on releasing the information, it did compromise a human source who provided the intelligence to the Israelis, who then provided it to the U.S. for targeting, a senior American intelligence official and a source with knowledge of the Israelis’ ire told CBS News. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters.
The Wall Street Journal on Thursday first reported about the Israelis complaining to U.S. officials about Mike Waltz, President Trump’s national security adviser, who set up the group chat and apparently added Goldberg by mistake. The group spent several days earlier this month exchanging messages about possible plans to strike Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, who have repeatedly launched missiles at Israel and targeted shipping in the Red Sea.
CBS News reached out to the National Security Council and the Israeli Embassy in the U.S. for comment on Friday, but has not received a response.
On March 15, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texted the group chat, composed of what’s known as the principals committee — the highest level of the National Security Council, which includes Cabinet members and other senior U.S. officials.
According to Goldberg’s report, one of Hegseth’s messages said:
“Trigger Based” F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)
The senior American intelligence official told CBS News that in this context, “Trigger Based” refers to an operation that is contingent upon a specific condition or event — essentially, a go or no-go decision to launch an airstrike based on confirmation of the target’s presence.
That day, Navy F/A-18F Super Hornets launched from the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman located in the Red Sea, while the MQ-9 Reaper drones took flight from bases in the Middle East. U.S. Central Command said in a statement that they had begun an operation which consisted of “precision strikes against Iran-backed Houthi targets across Yemen in order to restore freedom of navigation.”
Hegseth said in another text, prior to the decision to strike, that he supported doing so to restore freedom of navigation and reestablish deterrence, which he described as being “cratered” under the Biden administration.
After the U.S. airstrikes began on the Iranian-backed Houthis, Waltz addressed Vice President JD Vance in the chat group to say the building had collapsed and that U.S. military forces had “multiple positive ID,” indicating positive identification of the Houthi member or members they were aiming to kill.
Waltz added: “The first target — their top missile guy — we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed,” according to the texts posted by The Atlantic.
As a barrage of criticism rolled in this week towards those involved in the Signal chat, senior Trump administration officials have repeatedly said the information was not classified and that no sources or methods were compromised.
“No locations. No sources & methods. No WAR PLANS,” Waltz wrote on X on Wednesday. “Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent.”
But the sources who spoke to CBS News say Israeli intelligence is angry that the intelligence they provided to the U.S. was revealed. It’s unclear what the fallout will be, if any, between the U.S. and Israel over the situation.
CBS News reported Thursday that President Trump has been privately venting his irritation about the Signal chat leak and is closely monitoring the news to see if the fallout quiets down, according to sources familiar with the matter.
On Tuesday, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, both of whom were in the Signal group chat, testified before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.
“There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat,” Gabbard told lawmakers. The following day, testifying before a House panel, Gabbard acknowledged the conversation was “sensitive” but again denied classified information was shared in the chat. “There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared,” she said.
Multiple U.S. intelligence officials and members of the U.S. military who have spoken to CBS News this week contended that this type of information is always classified, but even if the information was somehow unclassified, it would still be a violation of cybersecurity and operational security protocols.
CBS News on Tuesday published unclassified internal documents from a National Security Agency bulletin warning of vulnerabilities in using the Signal app, even though it is encrypted. The NSA bulletin was widely distributed to NSA employees a month before the Signal chat group was created by Waltz.
The bulletin also underscored to NSA employees that third-party messaging applications such as Signal and WhatsApp are permitted for certain “unclassified accountability/recall exercises” but not for communicating more sensitive information.
NSA employees were also warned to not send “anything compromising over any social media or Internet-based tool or application,” and to not “establish connections with people you do not know.”