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| Volume 54 Number 10, May 11, 2024 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Flightpath of a British Shadow R1 spy on its way to Gaza
- Screengrab RadarBox
An article by Matt Kennard last week in Declassified reported that British spy planes have recorded up to 1,000 hours of footage over Gaza in over 200 flights since December 3 last year. The report says that; "the extraordinary number of missions over the past five months works out at well over a flight per day and continues as Israel invades the supposedly 'safe' southern city of Rafah." All the British spy flights have taken off from RAF Akrotiri, the UK's sprawling air base on Cyprus, and have been in the air for around six hours.
The article says that the new information comes "amid speculation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is set to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers. British officials could also face prosecution for complicity in war crimes, including defence secretary Grant Shapps." The article continues that: "Shapps was asked by five different MPs whether he would share footage from the flights with the ICC, if it showed evidence of war crimes. Each time he gave an evasive answer. Last week, when asked again by another MP, the MoD appeared to deny that any footage had been shared with the court. It also refused to comment on whether the aircraft had filmed mass graves being built at Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals."
Equally complicit, was when the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced on 2 December 2023 that it would begin surveillance flights over Gaza "in support of the ongoing hostage rescue activity" and that the "safety of British nationals is our utmost priority." This is another lie as Declassified revealed that a "British spy flight was in the air on Monday April 1 when three Britons were killed in an Israeli strike on aid workers in Gaza. John Chapman, 57, James Henderson, 33, and James Kirby, 47," were among seven aid workers killed in the targeted assassination. "On that Monday, a UK spy plane departed Akrotiri at 5pm local time and arrived back at the base at 10:49pm. The Israeli airstrikes are believed to have taken place soon after 10.30pm. Israel has not released its full footage from the incident."
Britain has also refused to release its footage of this, or any of their flights that might uncover the massacres and war crimes in Gaza killing thousands of men women and children. In the House of Commons, both Leo Docherty, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, and Andrew Mitchell, Minister of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, have continued to insist that Cyprus is being used to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, mentioning that UK military planners have been embedded with the US operational team. They speak as though the genocide that is occurring in Gaza is some natural disaster, not that US/Israeli Zionism is wiping out the Palestinian people, and not only is the Netanyahu government ensuring aid does not reach the Palestinian people, but that the aim is to destroy every institution of the Palestinian society in Gaza itself. In such a situation, humanity stands with the Palestinian people and their resistance.
These spy flights are further evidence of the British government's complicity in war crimes and genocide in Gaza, for which the British government must be held accountable. For full article see note below [1]:
Note:
[1] Revealed: UK military has flown 200 spy missions over Gaza in support of
Israel - Mat Kennard, Declassified, May 8 2024