{"id":280613,"date":"2024-01-24T08:40:31","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T08:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=280613"},"modified":"2025-02-21T07:46:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T07:46:57","slug":"britain-has-flown-50-spy-missions-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=280613","title":{"rendered":"Britain has flown 50 spy missions over Gaza in support of Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Matt Kennard \u2013DeclassifiedUK.com Jan 18, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>British defence minister said in November UK flights were providing \u201csurveillance support to Israel, including preventing the transfer of weapons to terrorist groups\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>But the Ministry of Defence has since said surveillance flights are solely to help locate the two British hostages still in Gaza<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The UK military has flown 50 surveillance missions over Gaza since December, it can be revealed.<\/p>\n<p>The flights have taken off from Britain\u2019s controversial air base on Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, and averaged around one a day since the beginning of December.<\/p>\n<p>When asked the UK government refused to provide the number of spy flights, but <em>Declassified<\/em> has analysed flight tracking records.<\/p>\n<p>The British plane used is the Shadow R1, which is known as an intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>The Shadow R1 is operated by the UK military\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/our-organisation\/squadrons\/14-squadron\/\">No.14 Squadron<\/a>, which is based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, east England.<\/p>\n<p>The UK military recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/news\/articles\/110-million-upgrade-for-raf-shadow-fleet\/\">awarded<\/a> a \u00a3110m contract to the plane\u2019s manfacturer, US weapons company Raytheon, to update the aircraft and increase the British fleet from six to eight.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The flights appear to last around six hours.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/08Hb9qvvANI?si=SiV5ZmlwTZAIrfMY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8212;<\/div>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Intelligence<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The UK Ministry of Defence <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/dec\/02\/uk-surveillance-aircraft-to-search-for-hamas-hostage-sites-in-israel-and-gaza\">announced<\/a> on 2 December that it would begin surveillance flights over Gaza \u201cin support of the ongoing hostage rescue activity\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe safety of British nationals is our utmost priority,\u201d the department said. \u201cSurveillance aircraft will be unarmed, do not have a combat role, and will be tasked solely to locate hostages\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It added: \u201cOnly information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant authorities responsible for hostage rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Foreign secretary David Cameron <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/politics\/david-cameron-israel-gaza-palestine-hamas-b2475750.html\">confirmed<\/a> last week that Hamas holds just two British hostages.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli forces are also on the ground in Gaza, and notoriously have wide-ranging surveillance capabilities in the territory. It is unclear what Britain\u2019s R1s can add to the hostage rescue mission.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Change in role<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The British government previously said its surveillance assets had a more wide-ranging role for Israel.<\/p>\n<p>On 7 November, defence minister James Heappey <a href=\"https:\/\/questions-statements.parliament.uk\/written-questions\/detail\/2023-11-07\/48\">told parliament<\/a> that British \u201cflights have provided surveillance support to Israel, including preventing the transfer of weapons to terrorist groups, and to wider regional security.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Heappey <a href=\"https:\/\/questions-statements.parliament.uk\/written-questions\/detail\/2023-11-07\/47\">also said<\/a> the surveillance flights were to \u201cimprove our situational awareness in the region and provide assurance to our partners\u201d, assumed to mean Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Heappey refused, however, to disclose the number of flights Britain had made over Gaza. \u201cFor operational security reasons, I cannot comment on the specifics of this activity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>A week after the 7 October attack, the UK government announced military units would be deployed to the eastern Mediterranean \u201cto support Israel, reinforce regional stability and prevent escalation\u201d. The military package included P8 surveillance aircraft alongside other reconnaissance assets.<\/p>\n<p><em>Declassified<\/em> has previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.declassifieduk.org\/revealed-americas-secret-military-deployment-on-british-cyprus\/\">revealed<\/a> the US spy force, 1st Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, is permanently deployed at the British base on Cyprus alongside 129 American airmen.<\/p>\n<p><em>Declassified<\/em> also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.declassifieduk.org\/u-s-flies-routine-spy-flights-from-uks-cyprus-base-near-gaza-for-third-party-governments\/\">reported<\/a> on a leaked US cable in which a UK official said American spy flights from Britain\u2019s Cyprus base \u201chave become routine\u201d and the \u201cintelligence product\u201d is often \u201cpassed to third party governments\u201d, which is likely to include Israel.<\/p>\n<p>The UK Ministry of Defence and US Department of Defense both refused to comment to <em>Declassified<\/em> on what intelligence they are sharing with the Israelis.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.declassifieduk.org\/britain-has-flown-50-spy-missions-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. and Britain are both getting drawn into Israel\u2019s war. In Yemen they\u2019ve bombed the Houthi, who have targeted ships bound for Israel\u2019s Red Sea port of Eilat. While over Gaza they are also now conducting regular drone surveillance flights <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-10-gaza-war","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280613"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303940,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280613\/revisions\/303940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}