Spy watchdog considers probe into NZ possibly aiding Israel's assault on Gaza
Lawyers urge the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to look into activities of spy agencies and whether their intelligence is reaching Israel via the United States.
New Zealand’s spy agencies’ watchdog is considering a request to probe whether the country’s spooks have been aiding Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza.
Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Brendan Horsley on Thursday, September 12, confirmed he was considering the request by a group of legal experts.
In a letter, Associate Professor Treasa Dunworth, Dr Max Harris, and Vinod Bal warned it was plausible intelligence gathered by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) was being utilised to help Israel prosecute its 11-month siege and bombing of the occupied coastal strip.
They said the intelligence could be being passed via the United States. “If that is so, then we believe that this intelligence might be supporting the commission of international crimes in the ongoing conflicts between Israel and Palestine, and Israel and Hamas,” their letter said.
Intelligence-sharing activities with Western intelligence partners that aided Israeli actions in Gaza could be a breach of New Zealand law “as well as standards of propriety”, they added.
Attaching a 38-page document to support their call, they said an inquiry was desirable and necessary, as it could bolster confidence in the spy agencies and democratic checks and balances relating to their work.
The experts also said questions hung over spy agencies if they were helping a US-led military operation targeting Yemen in an attempt to end the Houthi naval blockade in the Red Sea. At least six members of New Zealand Defence Force have been involved in operation since January.
The Houthi blockade was launched in an attempt to halt Israel’s attack on Gaza and has involved dozens of cargo vessels being targeted with drones and cruise missiles. The Western counter operation, which has so far killed significant numbers of civilians in bombing raids in Yemen, was partly directed at “removing barriers to Israel's ongoing actions in Gaza,” the lawyers said.
Last year government officials told In Context no legal advice had been sought from Crown Lawyers over whether New Zealand’s position on Gaza could be in breach of international law.
In response to the lawyers’ request, the spy agencies said they collected intelligence in accordance with how government prioritised and defined national security interests.
“All activities of the agencies, including cooperation with overseas public authorities, must be in accordance with NZ law, including all human rights obligations recognised by NZ law,” they said in a statement.
“These are obligations which the agencies take very seriously, and they must have effective policies and procedures in place to ensure they act in accordance with both domestic and international law.
“Sharing of intelligence with overseas public authorities is also subject to relevant Ministerial Policy Statements and other internal NZSIS and GCSB policy to ensure robust consideration of intelligence sharing.
“Like all aspects of the agencies’ work, this area is subject to the independent oversight of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS). The agencies welcome this independent oversight, and will respond to any inquiries the IGIS makes”.
In June Horsley released his Work Programme 2024-25, where he said New Zealand agencies could “produce intelligence of value to participants in international armed conflicts; collect intelligence relevant to the security of New Zealand forces deployed overseas; and have a legitimate interest in how international conflicts might influence or draw support from violent extremists in New Zealand”.
However, he added: “Intelligence activity relating to armed conflict generally merits oversight because of the risks involved. Given the conflicts under way in Ukraine, Israel/Gaza and Yemen, I will be monitoring related intelligence activity in the coming year, including intelligence sharing, associated human rights risk assessments, and any support to military operations. This monitoring will be planned and systematic, but I am not committed to undertaking any specific reviews. Monitoring might indicate where review is necessary, or might be sufficient to answer the questions arising.”
A report by Horsley in March revealed a signals intelligence system secretly embedded in GCSB ran from 2012 to 2020 without ministerial approval.
The spying operation started after a secret Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by the GCSB and, presumably, the US’ National Security Agency (NSA) in 2011.
GCSB – like its Five Eyes Western intelligence partners GCHQ in Britain, the NSA in the US, the CSE in Canada, and the ASD in Australia – collects, assesses and produces reports on foreign intelligence.
It operates a satellite monitoring station at Waihopia on the north of the South Island, and a radio receiving station at Tangimoana, 140km north of capital Wellington.
Horsley said an unnamed “foreign partner agency” had used the infrastructure to intercept and decode messages that could be used to support “military actions” by foreign partners.
The spy program was suspected to be the NSA’s ‘Apparition’ system, first used by spy satellites to geolocate targets during the US ‘War on Terror’.
Israel has been accused of breaching the Genocide Convention, a United Nations legal instrument that New Zealand is a signatory to, obliging the country to do everything in its power to stop genocidal acts from taking place.
The International Court of Justice ruled in January that Israel had committed plausible acts of genocide and ordered Israeli officials to act to stop incitement and acts that harmed the Palestinian people.
Since then, Israel has continued its siege of Gaza, continuing to bomb hospitals, schools, lines of people waiting on food deliveries as well as those sleeping in tents in designated ‘safe zones’. Displaced Gazans are now dying of starvation and disease.
At the time of writing, the latest Israeli attack killed 18 people sheltering at al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza on Thursday September 12, including six UNRWA employees. The IDF claimed it carried out a “precise strike on terrorists” at the school.
According to an article in medical journal The Lancet in July, it is possible over 186,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 7.