British spy planes have recorded up to 1,000 hours of footage over Gaza, including from the day Israel assassinated three UK aid workers.
A British Shadow R1 spy plane in flight. (Photo: RAF)
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The Royal Air Force (RAF) has flown 200 surveillance flights over Gaza since December, it can be revealed.
The UK government refused to give any details about the flights which began on December 3 but Declassified has independently constructed a timeline.
The extraordinary number of missions over the past five months works out at well over a flight per day and continues as Israel invades the supposedly “safe” southern city of Rafah.
March saw the highest number of British spy flights over Gaza with 44 missions.
The new information comes amid speculation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is set to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers. British officials could also face prosecution for complicity in war crimes, including defence secretary Grant Shapps.
All the British spy flights have taken off from RAF Akrotiri, the UK’s sprawling air base on Cyprus, and have been in the air for around six hours.
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Flightpath of a British Shadow R1 spy on its way to Gaza. (Screengrab: RadarBox)
I’ve been trying to investigate the UK’s complicity in Israel’s Gaza genocide. There is no doubt that UK is complicit in genocide by supporting Israel’s Gaza genocide but the actual details are a little obscured. I’ve found that Declassified UK is a good source about the UK’s military support of Israel.
The UK announced that it is providing training to Israeli military officers in the country as the war on Gaza nears its 5-month mark with over 100,000 Palestinians recorded killed and injured.
“Israel is represented by Armed Forces personnel in its Embassy in the UK, and as participants in UK defence-led training courses”, British Defense Minister James Heappey has told parliament.
“There are currently six Israeli Armed Forces officers posted in the UK”, he added responding to a written question by Alba MP Kenny MacAskill.
The UK has also deployed additional military personnel to Egypt, Israel and Lebanon since the Gaza bombing began, but refuses to say at what levels.
New troops take number of UK personnel on Britain’s Cyprus bases to nearly 3,000
Figure does not include SAS personnel deployed to island for Gaza operations
Secret detachment of 129 American airmen are also deployed on UK territory on Cyprus
Number of new UK troops deployed elsewhere in Middle East will remain secret “for operational security reasons”, government says
British MP demands “openness and accountability” on role UK bases on Cyprus are playing in Israel’s bombing of Gaza
Britain secretly deployed 500 additional troops to its bases on Cyprus after Israel began bombing Gaza, it can be revealed.
The UK government has said previously that it deployed 1,000 troops to the East Mediterranean to support Israel but it did not reveal how these troops were distributed.
But in a letter to Alba MP Kenny MacAskill, seen by Declassified, defence minister James Heappey wrote that on 27 November half these troops were in Cyprus.
The MoD also admitted on Tuesday that it has flown close to 50 RAF operated aircraft to Israel since it began bombing Gaza.
The department told parliament: “As of 2 February 2024, a total of 48 RAF operated aircraft have flown to Israel since 7 October 2023.”
It added: “These flights included aircraft used to transport Ministers and senior officials conducting diplomatic engagements with Israel.”
Declassified could find no similar flights in the two months before the Gaza campaign began.
The majority of these flights are vast C-17 and A400 military transport aircraft which have gone from RAF Akrotiri, the sprawling British air base on Cyprus, to Tel Aviv.
The UK government claims the dozens of flights have “provided no lethal or military equipment other than medical supplies to Israel”.
But it is possible the US and Israel are using bases in Britain to move weapons to Israel.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has stated that UK military aircraft have provided surveillance support to Israel, following the deployment of assets to the eastern Mediterranean amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
In written parliamentary responses confirming the deployments on 13 November, MoD officials stated the UK had deployed “P-8 and other surveillance assets to improve our situational awareness in the region and provide assurance to our partners”.
Israel has been embroiled in an ongoing war with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and which conducted a bloody incursion into Israel on 7 October resulting in the deaths of some 1,200 Israeli’s, with over 200 kidnapped. The military response from Israel into Gaza has caused over 10,000 civilian deaths, according to Hamas-run Gazan authorities.
The UK military refuses to tell Declassified what intelligence it is sharing with Israel as we reveal the extraordinary number of surveillance flights Britain is undertaking over Gaza from its base on Cyprus.
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The UK military has flown 50 surveillance missions over Gaza since December, it can be revealed.
The flights have taken off from Britain’s controversial air base on Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, and averaged around one a day since the beginning of December.
When asked the UK government refused to provide the number of spy flights, but Declassified has analysed flight tracking records.
The British plane used is the Shadow R1, which is known as an intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) aircraft.
The Shadow R1 is operated by the UK military’s No.14 Squadron, which is based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, east England.
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The British flights began on 3 December when two R1s flew over Gaza. The flights have continued nearly daily up until now, with around half the days featuring two flights. On 3 January, the British sent an R1 over Gaza three times.
The flights appear to last around six hours.
Intelligence
The UK Ministry of Defence announced on 2 December that it would begin surveillance flights over Gaza “in support of the ongoing hostage rescue activity”.
“The safety of British nationals is our utmost priority,” the department said. “Surveillance aircraft will be unarmed, do not have a combat role, and will be tasked solely to locate hostages”.
It added: “Only information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant authorities responsible for hostage rescue.”
But the extraordinary number of flights, and the fact that they started nearly two months after the hostages were taken, raises suspicions that the UK is not collecting intelligence solely for this purpose.
Foreign secretary David Cameron confirmed last week that Hamas holds just two British hostages.
A Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4 takes off to carry out air strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen, from RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, January 22, 2024
BRITAIN faced condemnation today after carrying out further bombing raids with the US over Yemen.
Royal Air Force jets took part in a second wave of joint US-British action against Houthi forces on Monday night after the movement’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden continued.
Four RAF Typhoons and a pair of Voyager tankers were involved in the latest action.
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A summary of the British government’s legal position said the nation is permitted under international law to use force “in such circumstances where acting in self-defence is the only feasible means to deal with an actual or imminent armed attack.”
Stop the War Coalition national officer John Rees said that the action was the “largest raid so far on Yemen,” adding: “We were told there was no need for a vote in Parliament because [January 11] was a one-off raid. Well, this is now the second one-off raid.
“We should be under no illusion that we are not at war with Yemen. We are.
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“The violent repercussions of Israel’s war on Gaza are spreading across the Middle East and west Asia, threatening a much wider conflict. We must stop bombing Yemen.”
