Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza
Britain is using spy planes to gather intelligence on hostages held by Hamas that it is passing on to the Israeli military, it has been disclosed.
David Lammy, the UK’s Foreign Secretary, confirmed in a letter that RAF aircraft were being used over Gaza to retrieve information on hostages. At least one hostage, Emily Damari, holds joint British-Israeli citizenship.
The RAF Shadow R1 aircraft used on the missions have an immense capability to pick up signals intelligence including phone and radio calls and WhatsApp messages, flying daily missions since the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Israel-Gaza war – in pictures
-
Smoke rises after Israeli air strikes targeted Palestine Tower in Gaza city on October 7, 2023. EPA -
Palestinians take control of an Israeli Merkava battle tank after crossing the border fence with Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. AFP -
This video grab from footage released by the Israeli Hostage and Missing Families Forum campaign group on May 22 shows what the group described as Israeli female soldiers being captured by Palestinian Hamas militants during the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. AFP -
Smoke rises following an Israeli air strike in Gaza city on October 9, 2023. EPA -
A rocket is launched from the coastal Gaza strip towards Israel by militants of the Ezz Al-Din Al Qassam militia, the military wing of Hamas movement, in Gaza city. EPA -
Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, as seen from the city of Ashkelon, Israel, on October 9, 2023. Reuters -
Lightning strikes as smoke billows following an Israeli air strike in Gaza city on October 9, 2023. AFP -
An Israeli artillery unit fires at an area along the border with Gaza, southern Israel, on October 11, 2023. EPA -
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish people carry their belongings before boarding a ship for US nationals and their immediate family members, as they leave Israel headed for Cyprus. Reuters -
Palestinian youths take cover behind a rubbish container as they clash with Israeli forces at the northern entrance of the West Bank city of Ramallah near the Israeli settlement of Beit El on October 20, 2023. AFP -
A man mourns as he attends a funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 24, 2023. Reuters -
A man holds a child, survivors of Israeli bombardment, as they are treated at a trauma ward at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 24, 2023. AFP -
People search for survivors and the bodies of victims through the rubble of buildings destroyed during Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 26, 2023. AFP -
Anti-war protesters raise their 'bloody' hands behind US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on President Biden's $106 billion national security supplemental funding request to support Israel and Ukraine, as well as bolster border security, on Capitol Hill in Washington on October 31, 2023. Reuters -
Palestinians run for cover after a strike near the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza city on November 1, 2023. AFP -
Palestinian children run as they flee from Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on November 6, 2023. AFP -
An injured Palestinian woman covered in dust and blood hugs an injured girl child at the hospital following the Israeli bombardment of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on November 15, 2023. AFP -
Hostages released by Hamas Gal, left, and Tal Almog-Goldstein, second left, stand in a bus transporting them to an army base in Ofakim in southern Israel after they were released by the Palestinian militant group from the Gaza Strip on November 26, 2023. AFP -
Palestinian boys stand in their makeshift tent at a camp set up on a schoolyard in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip where most civilians have taken refuge, on December 13, 2023. AFP -
Palestinians fleeing the north through the Salaheddin road in the Zeitoun district on the southern outskirts of Gaza city, walk past Israeli army tanks on November 24, 2023. AFP -
In this picture taken during a media tour organised by the Israeli military on December 15, 2023, soldiers visit a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing on October 7. AFP -
Jewish protesters block the passage of aid trucks being sent to Gaza in Ashdod, Israel on February 1, 2024. Reuters -
A man pulls water containers as he walks past destroyed buildings in Khan Younis on May 5, 2024. AFP -
Relatives of Hanan Yablonka, one of the Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian Hamas militants, mourn during his funeral in Tel Aviv on May 26. AFP -
Humanitarian aid packages land after being dropped from a plane in Al Mawasi district of Khan Younis, on May 30, 2024. Reuters -
Palestinians attend Eid al-Adha prayer in Khan Younis town, southern Gaza strip, on June 16. EPA -
Displaced Palestinians play football in Jabalia on July 23, 2024. AFP -
Palestinians injured in an Israeli strike on a school ride on the back of a cart in Deir Al Balah on July 27, 2024. AFP -
Palestinians gather to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in the northern Gaza Strip, September 11. Reuters -
Palestinians survey the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a displacement camp in Khan Younis on September 10, 2024. AFP -
A medical staff member carries supplies through a destroyed section of Al Shifa hospital in Gaza city on September 17. AFP -
People walk past makeshift graves in Gaza city on September 17. AFP
While defence experts have questioned whether information that could be used to target Hamas could be passed on to the Israelis, Whitehall sources have confirmed to The National that “definitely no information is passed on like that”.
“We only provide information on locating hostages and hostage rescue,” the source added. “The intelligence gathering's sole purpose is for locating hostages.”
Since the October 7 attacks on Israel, the Shadow R1s have been nearly constant in the skies above or adjacent to Gaza, hoovering up reams of intelligence.
In a letter written to the UK parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Mr Lammy said “these surveillance aircraft are unarmed and do not have a combat role” and they were “tasked solely to locate hostages”.
However, because of the highly sensitive nature of the missions, he added that “we cannot … share everything that the government is doing”.
As of November last year, the RAF aircraft flying out of the UK’s Cyprus airbase 362km from Gaza had conducted 645 flights over the enclave since October 7.
However, military analysts have suggested that even if the Shadow R1’s main mission was to find information leading to the hostages’ whereabouts, it was possible other information could still be passed on to Israel.
“Why would the Israelis allow the RAF to fly over their air space without the RAF giving them something?” said defence expert Tim Ripley, editor of Defence Eye.
“But the real question is, are the Israelis bombing people on intelligence that we give them?”
That has been strongly denied by the UK’s Ministry of Defence, but it has conceded that it would give evidence of any war crimes to the International Criminal Court.
“In line with our international obligations, we would consider any formal request from the International Criminal Court to provide information relating to investigations into war crimes,” the MoD said.
Air force expert Paul Beaver called the Shadow R1s the “most capable surveillance aircraft in Nato”, where the on-board personnel “can just listen into virtually everything” and data is immediately transferred by satellite to military planners.
“There's obviously a reason these aircraft are there. One is that there are British hostages still and that's something the government has previously kept very quiet about. It’s a more difficult question on exactly what intelligence is being passed on to the Israelis.”
The innocuous-looking twin propeller driven Beechcraft are equipped with highly capable cameras as well as eavesdropping devices and can fly 450kph on missions lasting between two and six hours.
Aid needed
Meanwhile, the committee of MPs has been told that dismantling the UN agency charged with giving out aid in Gaza will leave “children without hope to access education and plunge communities deeper into poverty and despair”.
In a letter, UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinians, urged the UK to push for continued aid access in Gaza.
It should “press the state of Israel for unrestricted humanitarian access, and champion accountability for violations of international law through international legal mechanisms”, the UNRWA director said.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, voted in October in favour of measures aimed at curbing UNRWA's operations in Gaza following a 90-day grace period, a deadline which will end on January 28.
Some Israeli politicians had accused the agency of harbouring Hamas members, and while the UN has fired nine workers following an investigation, it said Israel has not provided evidence for wider infiltration.
Marta Lorenzo, UNRWA's director in Europe, said the agency’s services had been “lifesaving for children, women and men, at a time when the health system in Gaza has been decimated”.
She added: “In the absence of a functioning state, UNRWA is also the only organisation able to kick-start education for 650,000 children.
“The dismantling of UNRWA's operations at this moment would leave an entire generation of children without hope to access education and plunge communities deeper into poverty and despair, sowing the seeds for further instability and extremism.”
Speaking as her committee published the letters, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s chairman, Dame Emily Thornberry, said: “While it is clear from the Foreign Secretary’s letters that the [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] is working hard to bring about a ceasefire and bring home the hostages, there has been little tangible progress.
“The cold facts stand. Millions in Gaza are met daily with assaults from missiles and bombs. Dozens of hostages, including Britons and those with close links to the UK, are still held in Gaza, with no end to their suffering in sight.
“My question to the Foreign Secretary is this: If our current approach continues to fail, what is the plan B?”
In a statement to The National the Ministry of Defence said: “The UK’s operational mandate is narrowly defined to focus on securing the release of the hostages only, including British nationals, with the RAF routinely conducting unarmed flights since December 2023 for this sole purpose.”
