Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes a delivery of F-35s at Nevatim. (Photo: Kobi Gideon / GPO)
Exclusive: Twice as many supplies for Israel’s “most lethal” fighter jets were sent from Britain than previously known.
F-35 components have been shipped from an RAF base to Israel fourteen times amid the Gaza genocide, it can be revealed.
At least two of the deliveries took place this summer shortly after Keir Starmer became UK prime minister.
The shipments were dispatched from a Royal Air Force base in Marham, Norfolk. They were transferred to Nevatim airbase which houses the Israeli air force’s squadrons of F-35 jets.
Declassified previously revealed that seven shipments of F-35 parts had been transported from RAF Marham to Israel since the Gaza bombing began.
The Ministry of Defence has now admitted that there were in fact “14 transfers of F-35 components from RAF Marham to Israel between October 2023 and August 2024”.
There have been no further “exports of F-35 parts direct to Israel via RAF Marham since the licensing suspension” announced by the Labour government in September 2024.
It released the data in response to a parliamentary question tabled by Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South.
The revelation could implicate British ministers in war crimes. An Israeli F-35 fighter jet was used to bomb a designated safe zone in Gaza, killing 90 people, in July.
Sam Perlo-Freeman of Campaign Against Arms Trade told Declassified: “The F-35 plays a key role in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. By not merely permitting but actively facilitating the supply of F-35 components to Israel from RAF bases, UK ministers have made themselves parties to war crimes, and risked making UK military personnel complicit”
Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and the United Kingdom are actively participating in Israel’s genocides, war crimes, Neo-Fascism.
Fascists Mussolini and Hitler salute Keir Starmer and the Labour Party
What can be done? Ideally, those responsible including of course Starmer and Lammy would be prosecuted, convicted and punished. It’s likely that the British police can start that process but I somehow doubt that it will happen. There’s little doubt that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed: starvation, civilians including healthcare workers, journalists, aid workers are targeted, health facilities targeted, starvation, disease and forced displacements used as weapons of war. These are the crimes that German Nazi Fascists committed during WW2.
We shouldn’t allow normal functioning while our government is engaged in genocide. That would take commitment from many people. This is the correct course of course and our recent ancestors fought such Fascists and Fascism FFS.
Starmer and Lammy represent the Labour Party of course and act in the name of the Labour Party. There may be some leverage here. The Labour Party under Starmer is already hugely unpopular. It should be history now that it’s a Fascist Zionist party.
The Israeli military launched an airstrike on the al-Qassam Mosque and its surroundings in Gaza City’s Nuseirat refugee camp on November 27, 2024. (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The Biden administration seems to be ready and willing to keep piling more and more, despite Gaza descending into what President Biden just yesterday described as ‘hell,'” said Amnesty International USA.
Just hours after a cease-fire between the Israeli government and Lebanese group Hezbollah took effect, the Financial Times revealed that “U.S. President Joe Biden has provisionally approved a $680 million weapons sale to Israel,” which has also spent the past nearly 14 months decimating the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip.
Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the British newspaper reported that “U.S. officials recently briefed Congress on the plan to provide thousands of additional joint direct attack munition kits to Israel, known as JDAMS, as well as hundreds of small-diameter bombs.”
The Biden administration’s decision to advance the sale was subsequently confirmed by Reuters, which reported that “the package has been in the works for several months. It was first brought to the congressional committees in September then submitted for review in October.”
Human rights advocates critical of Israel’s assaults on Lebanon and Gaza—which has led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—responded with alarm to the new reporting.
“If these reports are true, it’s heartbreakingly devastating news,” saidAmnesty International USA. “These are the weapons that our research has shown were used to wipe out entire families, without any discernable military objective.”
Amnesty highlighted a trio of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have halted some arms sales to Israel. Although they failed to pass the Senate last week, the group was among several that noted over the course of three votes, 17, 18, and 19 senators supported halting weapons sales, “sending a clear signal that U.S. policy must change.”
“Yet, the Biden administration seems to be ready and willing to keep piling more and more, despite Gaza descending into what President Biden just yesterday described as ‘hell,'” Amnesty added Wednesday. “Sending more weapons that have been used to maim and kill with impunity doesn’t just put in jeopardy Palestinian lives and the elusive cease-fire the president is seeking, but also President Biden’s own legacy.”
The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project declared Wednesday that “President Biden is spending the final days of his presidency going against the will of most Americans, U.S. law, and international law.”
“The weapons included in this package have been used by Israel in numerous apparent war crimes,” the organization noted. “On July 13, 2024, Israel attacked a so-called ‘safe zone’ in al-Mawasi, in which internally displaced Palestinians were sheltering, killing at least 90 people and injuring hundreds more. A CNN investigation found that Israel carried out this attack with at least one JDAM.”
John Ramming Chappell, an adviser on legal and policy issues at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, similarly stressed that “these are the very same weapons that for months Israeli forces have used to kill Palestinian civilians and violate international humanitarian law.”
“Continuing arms transfers risks making the United States and US officials complicit in war crimes,” he said. “These arms sales are unlawful as a matter of both U.S. and international law. They are immoral. The congressional committees of jurisdiction can and must place a hold on the sales.”
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, pointed out that “aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity is itself a crime for which U.S. officials may (and should) face prosecution at the ICC.”
Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, though Palestine is. Both the Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser have attacked the warrants for Israeli leaders.
In a speech to Israelis on Tuesday, Netanyahu said that one of the reasons for the cease-fire in Lebanon “is to give our forces a breather and replenish stocks. And I say it openly, it is no secret that there have been big delays in weapons and munitions deliveries. These delays will be resolved soon. We will receive supplies of advanced weaponry that will keep our soldiers safe and give us more strike force to complete our mission.”
According to the Financial Times:
U.S. officials have denied there is any explicit link between the cease-fire deal and approval for the latest weapons delivery. While the cease-fire deal includes a so-called side letter from the U.S. to Israel, setting out Washington’s support for a certain freedom of Israeli action, people familiar with the text said it included no guarantees of weapon sales.
U.S. officials also deny that there have been deliberate delays to weapons shipments, aside from shipments of 2,000-pound bombs, which Biden paused earlier this year over concerns about their use in densely populated areas of Gaza.
The Times of Israelreported that Biden’s State Department declined to confirm the advancement of the package but said that U.S. support for Israel in the face of Iran-backed threats is “unwavering” and all weapon transfers are carried out in line with federal law.
“We have made clear that Israel must comply with international humanitarian law, has a moral obligation and strategic imperative to protect civilians, investigate allegations of any wrongdoing, and ensure accountability for any abuses or violations of international human rights law or international humanitarian law,” the State Department said.
As of Wednesday, officials in Gaza said the death toll had hit at least 44,282 Palestinians with another 104,880 people injured.
The crater left after the bombing of the MAP villa. (Photo: Amer Shoaib)
An airstrike on a medical compound in Gaza exposes Britain’s complicity with Israeli war crimes.
On 18 January 2024, a bomb exploded beside a villa in Gaza, housing international doctors working for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
Despite the building being “deconflicted” — a designation meant to ensure its protection under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) — the strike injured two staff members and left the structure severely damaged.
Among the survivors was Amer Shoaib, a British orthopaedic surgeon working for MAP UK. Dr Shoaib, a veteran of the Royal Army Medical Corps, narrowly escaped the attack.
“Everything went completely white, and the ceiling and windows caved in,” Dr Shoaib recalls. “We were lucky. It was a minor miracle just because of where the bomb landed.”
An investigation by the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) has since revealed troubling evidence about the attack.
The findings suggest the airstrike may have involved UK-manufactured components, raising serious concerns about Britain’s role in the violence in Gaza.
The bomb used in the attack on MAP’s villa, potentially a GBU-32 (Mk 83) equipped with a delay fuse, was delivered by an F-16 fighter jet.
These jets, outfitted with advanced missile-launching kits and display systems supplied by British defence giant BAE Systems, have been integral to Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza.
…
Documents revealed in the High Court show that licences for F-35 components were excluded from the September suspension due to their “profound impact on international peace and security” – alluding to Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the US, which leads the F-35 program.
This carve-out raises ethical concerns, as it openly acknowledges the risk of these components contributing to serious violations of IHL but – in the absence of a full-scale arms export ban – appears to still prioritise commercial and strategic interests.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAGenocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
A bomb remnant retrieved following Israel’s October 25, 2024 attack on a compound housing journalists in southern Lebanon. (Photo: Anoir Ghaida via Human Rights Watch)
“Israel’s use of U.S. arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel,” said a researcher from Human Rights Watch.
A leading international human rights organization said Monday that Israel’s deadly bombing of a Lebanese residential compound housing journalists last month was carried out using a munition guidance kit supplied by the United States.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its investigation determined that the October 25 strike in southern Lebanon, launched in the early hours of the morning as most of the journalists staying in the compound slept, was “most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.”
The group’s investigators visited the Hasbaya Village Club Resort, the target of the strike, and found no evidence that the compound was being used for military activity, undercutting Israel’s initial claim that it hit a building from which “terrorists were operating.”
HRW also said it reviewed information indicating that Israel’s military “knew or should have known” that journalists were staying in the compound. Journalists who were at the compound when Israel’s strike hit said the Israeli military did not issue a warning ahead of the attack.
“All the indications show that this would have been a deliberate targeting of journalists: a war crime.”
The airstrike killed at least three journalists and injured several others. Remnants from the scene of the strike collected by the targeted resort’s owner were “consistent” with Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) that the U.S. has provided to the Israeli military.
One fragment, according to HRW “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a U.S. company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions.” Boeing, a major U.S. military contractor, assembles and sells JDAMs, which are attached to bombs with the stated goal of making airstrikes more precise.
Other remnants HRW reviewed were consistent with materials from a 500-pound bomb equipped with a JDAM.
A bomb remnant retrieved following Israel’s October 25, 2024 attack. (Photo: Anoir Ghaida via Human Rights Watch)
Richard Weir, a senior researcher at HRW, said in a statement Monday that “Israel’s use of U.S. arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel.”
“The Israeli military’s previous deadly attacks on journalists without any consequences give little hope for accountability in this or future violations against the media,” said Weir. “As evidence mounts of Israel’s unlawful use of U.S. weapons, including in apparent war crimes, U.S. officials need to decide whether they will uphold U.S. and international law by halting arms sales to Israel or risk being found legally complicit in serious violations.”
The Guardian conducted a separate investigation of the Israeli strike and reached conclusions mirroring HRW’s, reporting Monday that “Israel used a U.S. munition to target and kill three journalists and wound three.”
“On 25 October at 3:19 am, an Israeli jet shot two bombs at a chalet hosting three journalists—cameraman Ghassan Najjar and technician Mohammad Reda from pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, as well as cameraman Wissam Qassem from the Hezbollah-affiliated outlet al-Manar,” the newspaper observed. “All three were killed in their sleep in the attack which also wounded three other journalists from different outlets staying nearby. There was no fighting in the area before or at the time of the strike.”
Nadim Houry, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, told The Guardian that “all the indications show that this would have been a deliberate targeting of journalists: a war crime.”
“This was clearly delineated as a place where journalists were staying,” Houry said.
The findings were published just days after the U.S. Senate voted down an effort led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block new sales of American weaponry to Israel. One of the resolutions put forth by Sanders would have blocked the imminent transfer of over $260 million worth of JDAMs to Israel’s military.
In a fact sheet, Sanders’ office pointed to six examples in which Israel’s military used JDAMs in deadly attacks on civilians in Gaza and Lebanon, including children.
“The United States is complicit in these atrocities,” Sanders said in a floor speech ahead of last week’s vote. “That complicity must end.”
