ANALYSIS//INTELLIGENCE SERVICES// The ongoing crisis in Gaza has not only exposed the region’s political and humanitarian fragility. It has also revealed how intelligence has become a diplomatic instrument — a currency in which information is exchanged, withheld, and used to shape narratives.
A number of actors illustrate this development with particular clarity: Denmark, Egypt, Israel, and the United States. Their conduct shows how the struggle over data and narrative has become just as decisive as the battles fought on the ground.
Egypt: The Mediator with Access to Both Sides
For decades, Egypt has served as the primary intermediary between Israel and Hamas.
Its intelligence service, the General Intelligence Directorate (GIS), occupies a unique position: it speaks to everyone but represents no one openly.
According to Reuters, the GIS has brokered most ceasefires since 2014 – often through informal channels and personal relationships rather than formal agreements.
During the current ceasefire, Egypt coordinates prisoner exchanges, humanitarian aid, and communication between Hamas and the American and Israeli negotiators.
But this role comes at a price: Cairo must constantly balance its alliance with the United States against the anger of its own population over the scenes from Gaza — a sentiment that, even under an authoritarian regime, cannot be ignored.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi knows all too well that even strongmen cannot afford to disregard public opinion.
Egyptian intelligence therefore functions both as a valve for international tension and as a filter deciding which information passes through — and which does not.
Israel: Intelligence in Crisis and Transformation
For Israel, intelligence is not merely an instrument — it is part of the country’s identity.
The Gaza crisis has marked a rupture with a long-held self-image: that superior intelligence could always anticipate and prevent attacks.
Since October 7, 2023, it has become clear that this paradigm no longer holds.
Following the attacks, the Israeli government and military launched an internal restructuring of the intelligence services, renegotiating the division of responsibilities among Shin Bet, Mossad, and Aman.
According to The Times of Israel and Haaretz, the army is working to merge cyber and signal intelligence under a single command to avoid the fragmented information chains that enabled Hamas’s surprise assault.
The crisis has triggered a new political awareness of intelligence failure – a recognition that technological superiority cannot replace human judgment.
At the same time, the very purpose of Israeli intelligence has shifted: from prevention to control and communication.
The agencies are increasingly integrated into the government’s information strategy, both domestically and abroad.
What was once a hidden network has become a visible political instrument – a transformation many Israeli analysts see as a threat to the institutional balance of democracy.
The power struggle has also deepened within the political elite.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dismissal of his national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, after the October 7 failure illustrates how intelligence has become a battleground for blame as much as for security.
According to Haaretz and The Guardian, parts of the defense establishment were aware that an attack was imminent, but the warnings were ignored.
In the war’s second phase, Israel has turned to offensive intelligence: target selection, cyber-surveillance, and information control.
Military operations are now accompanied by a vast communications apparatus seeking to maintain international support.
Intelligence has thus become narrative, not just military — an attempt to control how the conflict is perceived beyond the region.
The United States: Intelligence as Public Policy
In Washington, the Gaza crisis has accelerated a trend already underway since 9/11:
intelligence agencies have stepped out of the shadows and become active participants in diplomacy and public communication.
According to Foreign Policy and The Washington Post, CIA Director William Burns now plays a central role in the diplomatic architecture surrounding Gaza — not merely as adviser but as negotiator.
This represents a paradigm shift: the CIA has moved from informing foreign policy to executing it.
Meanwhile, the NSA’s surveillance technologies have received expanded mandates during the conflict, particularly in cooperation with Israel.
Data from communications, drones, and satellites are used not only for security purposes but also for strategic narrative management — determining which information reaches the public and the press.
This development has made American intelligence more visible than ever, but also more politicised.
In its attempt to appear as a guarantor of stability, the U.S. intelligence community risks undermining the trust once rooted in its anonymity.
In other words, the Gaza crisis has turned intelligence into a form of public policy — a sphere where power and morality converge in real time.
The U.S., acting as both mediator and participant, now finds its agencies entangled in diplomacy itself.
When the same organisations that collect intelligence also brief the media and shape negotiations, the line between knowledge and strategy all but disappears.
Intelligence has stepped into the spotlight — but only when it serves strategic ends.
Europe’s Reactive Role
While the U.S. and the Middle East operate openly in diplomacy and intelligence, Europe’s services remain largely reactive.
The case of Ahmed Samsam has already revealed how European intelligence struggles with transparency and accountability.
With the Danish Supreme Court’s recent ruling, it is now the fourth time in just two years that the country’s highest judicial authority has publicly reprimanded its intelligence services.
The cases of Samsam, Morten Storm, and Lars Findsen show a consistent weakness: institutions unable to manage crises where secrecy collides with morality.
Europe possesses information but lacks a coherent narrative — and without one, political influence is limited.
Old-school intelligence operated in shadows and silence. Modern agencies, however, work under a different logic: the creation of a narrative has become as crucial as the gathering of facts.
Seen through the lens of the Gaza crisis, this is not about direct connections but about institutional culture.
In Copenhagen, Washington, and Jerusalem alike, the same pattern emerges: controlling the story has become more important than confronting the truth.
When agencies attempt to dictate what may be known, they lose the ability to learn from their own failures.
Intelligence as the Currency of Power
Intelligence today functions as a diplomatic currency, traded alongside weapons and commerce.
It is exchanged, withheld, and leaked as part of a global balance of power.
Egypt uses its channels to preserve regional relevance — particularly against wealthier challengers such as Qatar and the UAE, eager to claim its role as chief mediator.
Israel uses surveillance as both defense and communication.
The United States seeks to maintain global authority through access to data and coordination.
Yet in this game, moral legitimacy has become the most fragile currency of all.
When states base their decisions on secret assessments the public can never see, a democratic vacuum emerges.
Intelligence is meant to safeguard security — but it must never replace accountability.
The 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi revealed how an intelligence apparatus can ultimately destroy its own credibility.
According to The Washington Post and BBC, CIA assessments showed that the killing was carried out with direct links to the Saudi leadership, while Riyadh sought to frame it as a “rogue operation.”
When the narrative collapsed, so did legitimacy.
The Khashoggi affair remains a warning: when agencies lose control of their own story, they lose the very foundation of their existence, trust.
An intelligence service without credibility in the public eye is a hollow institution.
A Global Echo of Experience
Across regions, the pattern is unmistakable.
Intelligence services — from Denmark’s FE to the CIA and Mossad — now struggle not to collect information, but to control its meaning or rather its narrative.
When secrecy becomes reflex and communication becomes strategy, democratic judgment erodes.
The Gaza crisis and the Danish cases show that the struggle for control today is waged with words and narratives, not only with weapons.
And that trust, rather than silence, has become the true currency of modern security.