Matt Kennard
Flight path of a British spy flight on its way to Gaza on Monday. (Screengrab: RadarBox)
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.
- British defence minister said in November UK flights were providing “surveillance support to Israel, including preventing the transfer of weapons to terrorist groups”
- But the Ministry of Defence has since said surveillance flights are solely to help locate the two British hostages still in Gaza
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.
The UK military recently awarded a £110m contract to the plane’s manfacturer, US weapons company Raytheon, to update the aircraft and increase the British fleet from six to eight.
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.
Israeli forces are also on the ground in Gaza, and notoriously have wide-ranging surveillance capabilities in the territory. It is unclear what Britain’s R1s can add to the hostage rescue mission.