The US military has recently begun deploying its own drones over the Gaza Strip to monitor compliance with the ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, a US media report said on Saturday.
With the consent of the Israelis, aerial photographs of activities on the ground are being taken, the New York Times cited Israeli and US military sources as saying.
The use of drones supports the US coordination centre in southern Israel, which has been monitoring humanitarian needs and compliance with the ceasefire since last week.
However, the newspaper report suggests that the US side would prefer to use the drones to form their own picture of the situation rather than relying primarily on Israeli intelligence.
While the Gaza war continued to escalate, there were repeated disagreements between the governments of the two countries.
When asked by the New York Times, neither the US Department of Defense nor the Israeli military commented on the newspaper's findings.
However, off the record, Israeli government officials are said to have described the use of drones as rather unusual. In addition, US government sources were quoted this week as expressing doubts as to whether Israel would really respect all agreements to maintain the fragile ceasefire.
A former US diplomat was even more outspoken about the drone deployment. "This is a very intrusive version of US monitoring on a front where Israel perceives an active threat," Daniel B Shapiro, US ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration, told the newspaper.
"If there was total transparency and total trust between Israel and the US, there wouldn't be a need for this," he added, "but obviously the US wants to eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding."
