Sources detail NSO Group's sales in Gulf states, where it has made deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years for its Pegasus spyware
Chaim Levinson / Haaretz : Tweets: @billmarczak , @kyleworton , @sarahleah1 , @congo_red_jr , @marwasf , @ruslantrad , @avischarf , @agnescallamard , and @lorenzofb Tweets: Bill Marczak / @billmarczak : Wow... The UAE and Saudi governments have gotten so much data from hacking phones with NSO's Pegasus spyware that they don't know what to do with it all. So, NSO has hired Israeli military veterans to help them. Blockbuster report from @Haaretz. https://www.haaretz.com/... https://twitter.com/... Kyle Orton / @kyleworton : NSO Group Technologies provided spyware to Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Abu Dhabi and Ras al-Khaimah in meetings mediated by #Israel's intelligence services. Interestingly, “NSO does not do business with Qatar” by official order of Jerusalem. https://www.haaretz.com/... Sarah Leah Whitson / @sarahleah1 : Gulf States buying #NSO software well known but buying at 10x markup and needing Israeli spies to help them sort the data is both funny and not funny... https://haaretz.com/ https://www.haaretz.com/... @congo_red_jr : As I have previously said, we are in the middle of the largest psywar campaign in human history. There are dozens of nations, corporations, NGO's, private intelligence outfits & military orgs involved from all over the world. No one has seen anything like it & it's getting worse! https://twitter.com/... @marwasf : NSO reportedly has a dedicated team working with #Gulf states, the company's most profitable division, signing contracts with Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia & UAE. “A product that you sell in Europe for $10 million you can sell in the Gulf for 10 times that” https://www.haaretz.com/... Ruslan Trad / @ruslantrad : The Israeli spyware firm NSO has signed contracts with Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. Despite its claims, NSO exercises little control over use of its software, which can be used to monitor dissidents. https://www.haaretz.com/... Avi Scharf / @avischarf : Israeli firm NSO sold its spyware for hundreds of millions of dollars to UAE and other Persian Gulf States, where it has been used to monitor anti-regime activists, with the encouragement and the official mediation of the Israeli government EXCLUSIVE DETAILS HERE 👇👇 https://twitter.com/... Agnes Callamard / @agnescallamard : @davidakaye and I had highlighted similar allegations and technical “prowess” in January in relation to the hacking of #JeffBezos phone by #SaudiArabia #MohammedBinSalman: https://www.ohchr.org/... this is further evidence backing up our allegations @JeffBezos https://twitter.com/... Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / @lorenzofb : Some juicy details about NSO's business in Gulf states like the UAE in this article. https://www.haaretz.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The Haaretz reporting fills in the commercial layer beneath what later coverage exposed: investigations into Pegasus' rise documented its use by the CIA, UAE, Mexico and Saudi Arabia, and this piece explains how those relationships were built — meetings mediated by Israeli intelligence, deals worth hundreds of millions across Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Ras al-Khaimah.
It also prefigures the accountability arc: a year after these sales details emerged, France found Pegasus on journalists' phones and referred the matter to Paris prosecutors, while Israel's control of Pegasus export licenses turned the spyware into a tool of diplomatic outreach — meaning the Gulf deals described here were never purely commercial transactions.
First-order effects
- Gulf clients are drowning in harvested data: NSO has hired Israeli military veterans specifically to help UAE and Saudi customers process what Pegasus collects.
- Anti-regime activists in client states face direct monitoring risk, with sources alleging NSO exercises little control over how its tools are used once sold.
Second-order effects
- Because every sale requires an Israeli export license, Jerusalem gains leverage over Gulf partners — spyware contracts functioning as an extension of Israeli diplomacy in the region.
- Documented abuse against journalists and activists forces governments like France into forensic investigations and criminal referrals, raising the legal cost of buying from NSO.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, commercial spyware consolidates into a statecraft instrument: access is brokered by intelligence services, licensed by exporting governments, and audited by no one — pushing victims' recourse toward foreign prosecutions rather than industry self-policing.
The trend: Commercial spyware is evolving from a product business into licensed statecraft, where export-control governments and intelligence brokers — not the vendors — determine who can surveil whom.