The judge in charge of the investigation into the wiretapping of the phones of a number of members of the Spanish government on Monday denounced what he said was the "absolute" lack of cooperation on the part of Israel, which forced him to temporarily shelve the investigation.

In June 2022, the judge sent a request to Israel to interrogate the head of the “NSO” company that developed the program.

Once installed on a mobile phone, Pegasus allows eavesdropping on the user of the phone by viewing messages, data, photos, and contacts, and enables remote activation of the microphone and camera.

A statement from the National Supreme Court said that in the face of the "utter absence of judicial cooperation from Israel, which has not responded to a judicial request" and probably "never will," the National Public Judge decided to "temporarily save his investigation."

According to the investigation, "the only remaining way" that the Spanish government can use to ask Israel to respond to this judicial request is the "diplomatic way".

The investigation was launched last year following a complaint filed by the Spanish government, which revealed in May 2022 that the phones of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Defense Minister Margarita Robles had been hacked using the Pegasus program.

Later, the government reported that the phones of ministers and other officials had been eavesdropped by the Pegasus program.

In his statement, the judge confirmed that Pedro Sanchez's phone was bugged five times between October 2020 and December 2021, while the analyzes of the phones of the other four government officials did not allow "who is responsible" for the espionage.

Although it was unable to determine either the information obtained during the wiretapping of its officials' phones or who was involved in the spying, the government stressed that the operation involved an "external attack".

Spanish media spoke of the possible involvement of Morocco, as the phones of Spanish officials were hacked in May 2021 and June of the same year, at the height of a conflict between Spain and Morocco.