New report lays out full extent of UK-Israel military partnership in Gaza
F-35 fighter jet
Oscar Rickett reports in Middle East Eye on 28 January 2025:
A new report from the British Palestinian Committee (BPC) has laid out the full extent of British military involvement in Israel’s war on Gaza and called on the UK government to bring its collaboration with the Israeli military to an end.
Released on Tuesday, the report notes that while the British government “has not been directly perpetrating violence in Gaza, it has played an influential role, not only through the validation of arms licences, but also through wider and deeper military collaboration with Israel”.
This collaboration includes the procurement of weapons from the Israeli military industry and the use of British military bases – particularly the Royal Air Force (RAF) base Akrotiri on the island of Cyprus – by the UK, US and Germany to supply Israel with “weapons, personnel, and intelligence” since the war on Gaza began following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023.
The UK has also participated in attacks on the Houthis in Yemen and has assisted in the protection of Israel’s military infrastructure from Iranian attacks, following escalation from the Israelis.
The report argues that the UK “is not simply failing in its third-party responsibilities to uphold international law, but is actively complicit in genocidal acts perpetrated against the Palestinian people.”
An advocacy organisation based in London, BPC focuses its attention on the F-35 fighter jet, which has been used alongside drones, helicopters and other aircraft to bombard Gaza throughout Israel’s war there.
F-35 bombed displaced people
On 13 July 2024, an Israeli F-35 dropped three 2,000-pound bombs on a camp for displaced people in Gaza’s Al Mawasi, killing at least 90. “This strike was made possible through British manufacturing and the supply of British-made spare parts that sustain Israel’s F-35 fleet,” the report notes.
In September, the UK government stopped sending British-made F-35 components directly to Israel as part of a wider suspension of weapons that it found that Israel could use to violate international humanitarian law in Gaza. But the UK continued to export the fighter jet parts to a global pool that could end up in Israeli F-35s.
The F-35 programme currently has no track-and-trace capability to allow for parts destined for specific countries to be halted without disrupting the global fleet. According to recent court documents, the UK would have to suspend all exports to the programme to divert components from going to Israel, a move that British officials have said would threaten global peace and security.