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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.
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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.”
