Former U.K. fighter pilot Malcolm Ducker has joined the largest aid flotilla to Gaza in history and is calling on the RAF to end intelligence support to Israel, writes John McEvoy.
(freegaza.org / Wikimedia)
By John McEvoy
Declassified UK
A British veteran has joined the largest aid flotilla to Gaza in history and is calling on the Royal Air Force (RAF) to end its intelligence support to Israel.
Malcolm Ducker, who served as a fighter pilot in the RAF between 1972 and 1979, is sailing with a flotilla of over 50 boats loaded with aid for Gaza.
The initiative is being led by the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), a “coalition of everyday people… who believe in human dignity and the power of nonviolent action.”
The first boats departed from Spanish ports on Sunday but were briefly delayed due to bad weather. More ships are set to join the flotilla in Tunisia in the coming days before arriving in Gaza in mid-September.
Ducker spoke exclusively with Declassified about his decision to take action.
The veteran said he was “appalled and furious” about British intelligence collaboration with Israel and urged RAF pilots to disobey orders when asked to conduct spy flights over Gaza.
“If you get kicked out of the air force for that, then sorry guys: that’s the price. That’s the price of being just and being a humanitarian,” he declared.
Becoming an Activist
“I got involved in activism quite late on,” Ducker said from the cabin of a sailing boat docked in Barcelona, Spain.
Ducker, who is now retired, spent much of his life focusing on his career – from flying Hawker Hunter jets for the RAF to working as an airline pilot.
But his daughter, an activist, opened his eyes to what was happening in Palestine. “I had never thought about the sort of things that she would get me involved in,” he says.
After posting videos on social media criticising Britain’s support for Israel, Ducker decided to join the GSF flotilla to Gaza, which aims to break the 18-year-long siege of Gaza.
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has come out strongly against the initiative. “We will not allow individuals who support terrorism to live in comfort. They will face the full consequences of their actions”, he declared on Sunday.
Does Ducker have any concerns about his safety?
“I suppose it would be unnatural not to have concerns for one’s safety,” he responds. “But when one considers what the Palestinian people are being put through by the Israeli military, the risk to us and to me personally I think is so small by comparison.”
Malcolm Ducker was an RAF fighter pilot. (Supplied via DeclassifiedUK)
Arriving in Gaza
The risks may seem small by comparison, but they are nonetheless serious.
In 2010, Israeli commandos raided the Mavi Marmara aid boat in international waters. Nine activists were killed in the assault, another later died from his wounds, and dozens more were injured.
Efforts to bring essential humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave have intensified over the past two years, with the Israeli government responding with even more violence.
In May 2025, a boat carrying 12 activists and supplies for Gaza was struck twice by armed drones off the coast of Malta. The activists were under no illusions about who the culprit was: Israel.
One month later, the British-flagged Madleen boat was intercepted by the Israeli navy in international waters. Among the detained crew members were climate activist Greta Thunberg and European parliament member Rima Hassan.
“We know how the Israelis basically pirated the Madleen and the Marmara,” Ducker told Declassified. “The Madleen, a British-flagged vessel, should have been under the protection of the British – of the Royal Navy. But no, they [politicians] don’t care.”
What does he expect the Israeli response to be this time?
MS Mavi Marmara making tour of Istanbul harbour on return to Turkey, December 2010. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
“We don’t know what they [the Israelis] are going to do – they are a law unto themselves, and they do things with impunity because of the actions of Western governments,” he responds.
“I have to say I am absolutely appalled by the RAF spy flights over Gaza in support of the Israelis,” he added, referring to more than 600 surveillance flights the U.K. has sent over the strip since 2023.
“I have tried to actually contact or send a message to the RAF pilots who are conducting these missions because I do believe that they are committing war crimes and I believe they will be held responsible one day,” Ducker continues.
Earlier this year, Ducker located his original RAF commission document, which “clearly states … that if you are given orders against the laws and regulations of war, then you have every right to refuse that order.”
Does he have a message for the RAF pilots who have been overflying Gaza?
“Please come to your senses,” he urges. “I know we can’t rely on our ministers, our government to have an ounce of humanity but you guys have the right to decline those orders.”
The former RAF fighter pilot concluded by lambasting how Britain’s corporate media has provided a smokescreen for Israel’s crimes in Gaza.
“We all know what the Palestinians are going through – at least, if you don’t just watch mainstream media. You’ve got to look at other things – you’ve got to look at Al Jazeera, you’ve got to look at Declassified UK, you’ve got to look at different things because otherwise you’re being brainwashed,” he commented.
John McEvoy is chief reporter for Declassified UK. John is a historian and filmmaker whose work focuses on British foreign policy and Latin America. His PhD was on Britain’s Secret Wars in Colombia between 1948 and 2009, and he is currently working on a documentary about Britain’s role in the rise of Augusto Pinochet.
This article is from Declassified UK.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Thanks Malcolm. We have 8 US veterans sailing on the Global Sumud flotilla. Hope you can meet them. As a US military veteran I have been on many flotilla boats…thanks for joining us. Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (Ret)
No guts, no glory attitude -typical hardcore fighter pilot hero stuff. Nicely done Malcolm!
Would someone explain to me why the French Resistance fighting against the illegal occupation of France by the German Nazi’s was heroic whilst the Palestinian Resistance(Hamas) fighting against the illegal occupation of Palestine by the Israelis is considered terrorism?
Why did we fight Hitler’s Nazi Germany in WW2(and Britain nearly didn’t but for the failure of the Ribbentrop agreement with Hitler)if not to end the vile concept of Nazism currently being promoted by Netanyahu’s racist and murderous Israel?
When the Jewish Zionists said “Never again” did they mean no genocide against Jews only?
Why is the murderous and monstrously rabid racist Israel not compared with the monstrously rabid racist German Nazis?
When is the Global South(not the colonialist and entitled collective West- obviously) going to BDS this murderous entity and demand Nuremburg Trials for all it’s offences against Muslims, Christians and what Netanyahu described as “Baboon blood” Ethiopian Jews and for ALL it’s Crimes Against Humanity going back 78 years?
I despair. It’s unimaginable then, the despair the Palestinians must endure during this evil genocide and those of them who have suffered over the last three quarters of a century.
kudos to malcolm ducker
– for listening to his daughter,
– for making RAF fighter pilots aware of their right
to disobey orders given against the regulations of war,
– for his resolve to take action!
recently, the flotilla flagship, at anchor
in a tunisian port, was hit by a drone.
it seems that this time, nobody was hurt.
a true shame that the flotilla gets no support
whatsoever from any european navy!
the dehumanization of palestinians – and of
countless other non-white peoples on earth –
has reached an utterly shameful, outrageous
stage of normalization …