Since December 2023, the Royal Air Force (RAF) had been flying the same Beechcraft King Air 350 plane over Gaza and sharing the intelligence with Israel, but now this programme appears to have ceased, and is instead being undertaken by the new US-leased private plane.
The British planes, which are called Shadow R1s in UK service, have flown near-daily from RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s sprawling airbase on Cyprus, for almost the entire duration of Israel’s assault on Gaza.
But the last RAF spy flight over Gaza from Akrotiri was on July 25, within days of the new US plane coming into operation on the same route. During the US plane’s first five trips over Gaza, it was accompanied by the RAF plane in an apparent training exercise.
For the 20 months of UK spy flights over Gaza for Israel, the planes had turned off their transponder about half way to Gaza so activity over Gaza had stayed secret.
On 28 July, however, the newly-trained US plane took off at 8pm and forgot to turn off its transponder. The flight path of a surveillance flight from RAF Akrotiri was visible for the first time. It shows the plane reaching Gaza at 9pm and circling over southern Gaza for an hour and half, concentrating its surveillance efforts over Khan Younis and surrounding areas.
The new US-leased spy plane, which flew from RAF Akrotiri on 28 July, circles over Khan Younis area for three hours.
Imagine a world where they are still trying to prosecute some Nazi camp guard in 2020s while this is happening before put eyes…
Clown fucking regime relies on idiots not being able to connect the dots.
US, UK and Germany are as complicit in the genocide as the genocide Israelis
Keir Starmer is an Israeli.
This opaque system is designed for clients to operate spy planes with limited oversight and accountability.
How is this different than if the UK military operated its own aircraft?
This article is written as if it’s a big scoop, but “military conducts operation using rented equipment instead of its own” seems pretty boring to me. Am I missing something?
The UK military Royal Air Force used to perform these flights but have recently stopped doing them.
Now a US contractor is doing the flights, however they use the RAF base and were provided RAF training.
What’s interesting is that the RAF always turned off their transponder when they neared Gaza so nobody knew where they were flying.
The US contractor didn’t turn off their transponder and likely leaked what the RAF has been doing for the past 2 years which is flying above Gaza (in a circle of interest to the IDF?):
For a more detailed video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEts4YvsXh4
Maybe this all just got lost in the noise talking about insignificant details like where the US company is based. “Change in operations reveals where RAF spy-plane flights have likely been operating” is more interesting than the actual headline, and more interesting than most of the other information in there. But because that is not the focus, I’m not really sure that was supposed to be the take-home.
I’m reminded of early in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when NATO RQ-4s, RC-135Ws and other spy aircraft were flying over and near to Ukraine - all with transponders on. It’s interesting to people obsessing over the war, but it’s not politics.
The article itself is extremely dense on details, I tried to condense it a bit in my summary but it’s hard.
It’s interesting to people obsessing over the war, but it’s not politics.
Well this is the opposite. They RAF turned their transponders off when they were doing these secretive flights. Spying for Israel during a genocide means being a direct participant in it. Kid Starver seems to have reached a point where he is trying to look less complicit and is now trying to shift the blame to a US company.
On the subject of these flights being “spying for Israel”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2k0d1elj81o
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said these flights were to gather intelligence related to the hostages seized by Hamas on 7 October last year.
The UK has said it would consider providing intelligence gathered from surveillance flights over Gaza to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if requested.
The UK has said it would consider providing intelligence
consider
Please stahp
I think I’ve done what I set out to do by showing your assumptions for what they are.
You are trying to present a narrative where the UK is enabling Israel’s genocidal war by finding targets for them to bomb and that, knowing that the public wouldn’t go along with this, are concealing their role by handing the contract to a third party - but have presented no evidence for this narrative at all. Everything that we actually know is consistent with an appropriate role for the UK military in helping to return hostages, while also gathering information that could help prosecute Netanyahu and his government.
All you have is spin, aspersions and name calling. Do better.
🤡
Blocked
Well this is the opposite. They RAF turned their transponders off when they were doing these secretive flights. Spying for Israel during a genocide means being a direct participant in it.
OK so after a few comments it seems you are willing to make a political point - but one which was not at all clear from merely posting an article with a dump of mostly-irrelevant detail.
The UK government position is that it is only sharing information with Israel that could be of use in returning hostages. You are characterising these flights as “spying for Israel” and “being a direct participant in genocide.” Where have you got your information from? Or are you just surmising that, since the UK is taking part in spy flights over Israel, it must be “spying for Israel”? Because that seems like an incredibly weak argument. We shouldn’t just trust implicitly that the government is telling the truth when there is military secrecy around, but that doesn’t mean the opposite is true.
Kid Starver seems to have reached a point where he is trying to look less complicit and is now trying to shift the blame to a US company.
Your shitty name-calling aside, it’s more likely to be for boring operational reasons, isn’t it. If it’s taking off from and returning to Akrotiri it’s not actually shifting the blame at all.
Uk is providing logistical, intelligence and materiel support to Israe.
So is US and Germany. Are you disputing this fact?
Do you have evidence of this?
The UK government has equivocated over using the word genocide but has generally indicated it’s displeasure at the humanitarian situation there. It has suspended some weapon exports.
Why would it be getting it’s hands dirty helping Israel target strikes in Gaza target than say keeping a very close eye on a volatile situation? How would being actively involved with either set of belligerents in the current conflict be beneficial to the UK?
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/the-facts-about-britains-arms-sales-israel-3745241
UK government has the evidence. I am just a shit poster reading between the lines.
UK regime is captured by Zionist so I am gonna die on this hill
It’s a different situation. Usually military flights will turn transponders off on operations. But because of the escalation path to nuclear war when a NATO plane approaches Russia, they take the unusual step of keeping the transponder on to make it very clear where they are and that they don’t intend incursions into Russian airspace.
