Royal Air Force surveillance flights towards Gaza keep taking place when hostages are released, Mark Curtis and Phil Miller report.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer visiting troops at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, Oct. 12, 2024. (Tim Hammond / No 10 Downing Street, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
By Mark Curtis and Phil Miller
Declassified UK
The Royal Air Force (RAF) has operated surveillance flights near Gaza on all five days of the ceasefire that Hamas released hostages, Declassified has found.
No spy planes were sent towards the strip on the other 20 days of the ceasefire.
The latest flight, by a Shadow R1 spy plane, occurred on Feb. 8 when three Israeli men — Eli Sharabi, Or Levy and Ohad Ben Ami — became free from captivity. Evidence found by Declassified suggests the spy plane was in the air at the same time.
Other hostages were released on Feb. 1 and Jab. 19, 25 and 30 as part of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Among them was the British-Israeli, Emily Damari. [On Thursday, Hamas returned the bodies of four dead hostages.]
RAF aircraft were also in the air when these hostages were released, data indicates.
The planes take off from Britain’s air base on Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, and head in the direction of Gaza, when they turn their transponders off.
Prior to the ceasefire, such flights were an almost daily occurrence with the U.K. government claiming they were helping Israel find hostages.
‘Not Convincing’
Labour MP Brian Leishman told Declassified:
“The ongoing use of a British military base in Cyprus with spy planes flying near Gaza is concerning. The purpose of these flights, the activities they undertake and what happens with any information they gather should be both questioned and explained.”
Campaigners in Cyprus are also questioning the U.K. government’s motives for the ongoing surveillance flights.
Melanie Steliou, a Cypriot actress and spokesperson for Social Alliance — a movement affiliated with Cyprus’ main opposition party AKEL — told Declassified:
“The explanation given that the flights being sent from RAF Akrotiri are only for rescuing hostages is not convincing. Why are these flights being continued during a ceasefire? Why are these flights near Gaza during hostage releases? What intelligence is RAF Akrotiri sharing with Israel? Are they only sharing intelligence or is the involvement of the bases at a greater level, creating even more risks for Cyprus and its people? These are legitimate questions.”
Steliou during an event in Cyprus in November 2017. (Promoting Enterprise/Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)
A spokesperson for Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) told Declassified:
“The U.K.’s operational mandate has been narrowly defined to focus on securing the release of the hostages only.”
They claimed that RAF flights in the Eastern Mediterranean during the truce “did not enter Gazan airspace and at all times operated in accordance with the ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas.”
However, the U.K. military may be breaking the spirit, if not the word, of the ceasefire agreement. The text of the original ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas states that in the first phase: “All aviation (military and reconnaissance) in the Gaza strip shall cease for 10 hours a day, and for 12 hours on the days when captives and prisoners are being exchanged.”
Ohad Ben Ami with Israeli forces after his release by Hamas on Feb. 8. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
This stipulation was designed to offer Palestinians respite from Israeli bombardment, and to assure Hamas that Israel will not collect intelligence on hostage movements and locations for use if the ceasefire collapses.
The potential for the U.K. military to spy on Hamas while hostages are being released raises the prospect that Israel could use such intelligence if it resumes its brutal assault on Gaza. The Shadow R1 planes are capable of gathering information for “target acquisition.”
‘We Have a Right to Know’
Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House on Oct. 30, 2024. (White House /Adam Schultz)
The surveillance flights from Cyprus have sparked protests outside Akrotiri air base, where Britain retained 3 percent of the island after independence in 1960.
Steliou said:
“What has been going on at the bases for the past 16 months has basically opened a Pandora’s box for the actual existence of the British bases in Cyprus. Cypriot citizens who in the past might have turned a blind eye to the activities on the British bases are now more aware than ever of the implications and the dangers these activities entail for the entire population.
“We have a right as citizens of this island to know how the British bases are involved in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. These activities, amongst others, make the bases a target which consequently lead to Cyprus being a target.”
She added that Social Alliance, AKEL and other groups on the island have urged Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides to demand answers from the British government.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Akrotiri in December and thanked RAF personnel there, saying: “Quite a bit of what goes on here can’t necessarily be talked about all of the time. We can’t necessarily tell the world what you’re doing.”
Mark Curtis is the director of Declassified UK, and the author of five books and many articles on U.K. foreign policy.
Phil Miller is the editor of Declassified UK. He is the author of Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes. Follow him on Twitter at @pmillerinfo
This article is from Declassified UK.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Starmer working in the gloom of suspect dealings, just like he did during the Assange days. Does he have an honest bone in his body? Why work with Israel, a country that is not in Europe and should be ejected from all European clubs and activities. Why help a foreign country that interferes in our media and politics and then has the added audacity to make the BBC drop one of their own reports on Gaza? What’s so special about Israel? What’s in it for Starmer?
My version is Abscess of Evil.
Sadly: Nothing new here, standard procedure. It was the British Empire (so-called Mandate) that made the State of Israel possible. To be crude: No Brits, no Israel. While many believe it the tail wags the dog, but that is part of long-term UK policy of maintaining a Zionist Crusader State in the ME. The imperial outpost “keeps them A-rabs in check”. Turkey, KSA, Egypt, Jordan, UAE, have betrayed Palestine many times, despite the hollow rhetoric and BS.
If anyone steps out of line, they will get the Syria and Lebanon treatment.
If one looks at this from a long term historical context: the West has been trying to control the region since the Christian Byzantines lost control of the region and the new religion of Islam took over. We had the Crusader States, British Mandate, and now Israel. Some things don’t change much
Any government that helps the Zionists is criminal in my view. That’s it.
US/UK = Asses of Evil…No wonder they get along so well…
I’ve been most impressed by USA retired Col. Wilkerson’s averse judgments
about Britain’s continuing imperial mind set governing its actions in the world.
“averse” doesn’t begin to describe his animosity towards the Brits’ government
and the machinations of the MI5. Their un-begrudging view of Russia and Putin
as being nothing but evil personified – particularly gauls him. The Brits cannot
integrate the fact that they are not the imperial power they once were. Wilkerson is a
voice worth listening to who can be found frequently on Judge Napalitano’s
Youtube Judging Freedom video program. Of course the Brits are spying. Duh!
“Among them was the British-Israeli, Emily Damari.”
A little off topic, but we learnt from the UK MSM that Ms Damari was treated to a personal telephone call from Keir Starmer, the self avowed Zionist, shortly after her release. We also learnt that she “had been denied medical treatment after being shot” [by whom was not made clear or how she managed to survive] and that “she had been held captive in an UNWRA building occupied by Hamas”. To be clear, I am not minimising any hostages’ ordeal, but how very conveniently her statement fits in with the State of Israel’s propaganda….
I daresay in the realm of raincoat&floppyhat&sunnies everybody is spying on each other, that is just the nature of covert things, and nothing per se wrong with that, better to know than not to know…it is wrong actions one has to worry about, not the gathering of intelligence but its disastrous processing.