The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.

That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.

The prosecutor’s decision to apply to the ICC’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders, is an outcome Israel’s military and political establishment has long feared.

The revelations about Cohen’s operation form part of a forthcoming investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, revealing how multiple Israel intelligence agencies ran a covert “war” against the ICC for almost a decade.

Contacted by the Guardian, a spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister’s office said: “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the state of Israel.” Cohen did not respond to a request for comment.

Multiple sources have confirmed to the Guardian the trips were partly related to the ICC operation, and Kabila, who left office in January 2019, played an important supporting role in the Mossad’s plot against Bensouda.

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