Even as the world’s attention has been riveted by the devastation and public outrage over the war in Gaza, a web of secretive military cooperation has quietly tightened between Israel and six key Arab states, according to leaked U.S. documents and reporting by The Washington Post and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The revelations, made public on October 13, 2025, shed new light on the complex interplay of public condemnation and private pragmatism shaping the Middle East’s security landscape.
Over the past three years, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar have all expanded their security ties with Israel, even as their leaders have fiercely denounced Israel’s campaign in Gaza. This cooperation is part of a classified regional defense framework known as the “Regional Security Construct,” facilitated by the U.S. military’s Central Command (Centcom). The documents also mention Kuwait and Oman as potential future partners, having been briefed on all meetings.
According to The Washington Post, these military ties were thrown into crisis after Israel’s airstrike in Qatar’s capital on September 9, 2025, targeting Hamas leaders. The incident prompted a rare apology from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, after pressure from the Trump administration, pledged on September 29 not to conduct such attacks in the future. Despite the strain, the partnership could now play a pivotal role in overseeing the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, which began after Israel and Hamas agreed on the first phase of a peace framework on October 8, 2025. This deal includes the release of all hostages held by Hamas and a partial Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Publicly, Arab leaders have been among the most vocal critics of Israel’s actions in Gaza. At the United Nations General Assembly in September, the Qatari emir described the conflict as “a genocidal war waged against the Palestinian people” and accused Israel of building “an apartheid system.” Similarly, the Saudi Foreign Ministry condemned Israel for what it called the “starvation” and “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. Yet, behind closed doors, these same governments have sent senior military officials to a series of planning meetings with Israeli counterparts in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and Qatar since 2022.
The driving force behind this unlikely collaboration? The growing threat posed by Iran and its allied militias. U.S. military documents describe Iran and its proxies as the “Axis of Evil,” and Centcom has led efforts to unite regional powers in countering Iranian influence. One document even featured a map with missiles superimposed over Gaza and Yemen, where Iranian-backed groups hold sway. “They are reliant on the U.S. as the guarantor of their security…and they are also very concerned about Iran,” explained Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa who specializes in Middle East security, to The Washington Post.
The cooperation has been anything but superficial. In May 2024, senior Israeli and Arab military officials convened at al-Udeid Air Base, a major U.S. facility in Qatar, for a carefully orchestrated meeting. Israeli delegates flew directly to the base, bypassing civilian entry points to avoid public scrutiny. The event’s planning documents, verified by The Washington Post and ICIJ, included strict instructions: no photographs, no media access, and even reminders about culinary restrictions for Jewish and Muslim participants.
These meetings have yielded tangible results. By 2024, Centcom had successfully linked many of the partner states to its air-defense systems, allowing them to provide radar and sensor data to the U.S. military and to view a combined regional air picture. Six of the seven partner nations were receiving partial air-defense data, and two were sharing their own radar feeds through a U.S. Air Force squadron. A secure U.S.-run chat system was also established to facilitate communication among partners.
Despite these technological advances, the system failed to protect Qatar from Israel’s September 9 strike. U.S. satellite and radar systems, as Air Force Lt. Gen. Derek France told reporters, “are typically focused on Iran and other [areas] where we expect an attack to come from.” Qatar’s own radar also failed to detect the Israeli missile launches, highlighting the limitations—and the political sensitivities—of the partnership.
Saudi Arabia, in particular, has played an active role, sharing intelligence with Israel and other Arab partners on a range of security issues. In a 2025 meeting, Saudi and U.S. officials provided briefings on political developments in Syria—including the roles of Russia, Turkey, and Kurdish forces—as well as threats from the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen and the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
The U.S. has long hoped that such military cooperation would pave the way for broader political normalization between Israel and Arab states, building on the momentum of the Abraham Accords. In 2022, Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, then Centcom’s commander, described the partnership as “building on [the] momentum of the Abraham Accords.” The leaked documents reveal how the centerpiece of the construct—an integrated air-defense plan to counter Iran’s missiles and drones—moved from concept to operational reality over the past three years.
In January 2025, a meeting at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, saw U.S. forces training partners on detecting and neutralizing subterranean tunnels, a key tactic used by Hamas in Gaza. Other documents detail plans for a Combined Middle East Cyber Center by the end of 2026, which would serve as a headquarters for education and exercises on defensive cyber operations, and an Information Fusion Center for rapid coordination in the information environment.
Notably, while the Arab states involved have signaled support for former President Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Gaza war—which calls for an international force to train a new Palestinian police force in Gaza—they have stopped short of publicly committing troops. In a joint statement, five of the six Arab countries said they supported a mechanism that “guarantees the security of all sides,” but avoided explicit pledges of military deployment.
The partnership’s existence is an open secret among military circles, but its extent has largely remained hidden from the public. Centcom officials declined to comment for the recent reports, and neither Israel nor the six Arab countries responded to requests for comment. As one former U.S. defense official put it, “They all seem to think the Israelis can do whatever they want, whenever they want, without detection.”
As the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire unfolds, the fate of the region’s fragile alliances—and the delicate balance between public outrage and private security interests—remains uncertain. But one thing is clear: beneath the surface, the Middle East’s security architecture is being quietly, but fundamentally, reshaped.