The British military is hiring American contractors to carry out secret spying missions over Gaza for Israel because of a shortage of RAF aircraft.
Ministry of Defence sources have told The Times that the government is paying a company based in Nevada to look for hostages.
A “schoolboy” error meant that the flight path of the US aircraft, registered as N6147U and used on behalf of the UK government, was made publicly available so it could be seen flying over the largely destroyed city of Khan Yunis in July.
The RAF’s Shadow R1 aircraft has recently returned to the UK, probably for maintenance, after filming hundreds of hours of activity in Gaza. The intelligence was shared with Israel, which the British government said was for the purpose of locating hostages.
RAF sources have confirmed that none of the eight Shadow aircraft are stationed at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. They are understood to have been assigned to other missions or to be undergoing maintenance.
It is unclear whether the leasing of a private US aircraft using taxpayers’ money is a long-term solution for a lack of British military aircraft.
The MoD contract is with Straight Flight Nevada Commercial Leasing LLC, a subsidiary of the Sierra Nevada Corporation, one of the largest military contractors in the world.
The aircraft, designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, has been used by the US military in Iraq. It is contractor-owned and contractor-operated, which means British military pilots do not fly it.
The MoD will not officially confirm the US aircraft is being paid for by Britain because the mission is “sensitive”, it is understood. However, two sources inside the department confirmed the UK government had leased the aircraft. The MoD has refused to disclose the contract’s length or cost.
Satellite images taken on July 26 show the destruction of Khan Yunis
PLANET LABS PBC/AP
Britain’s military support for Israel is at odds with the Foreign Office position, which has been to call out the Israeli government for “grotesque” treatment of Palestinians and threaten sanctions.
Patience with Israel inside the MoD appears to be running out, however.
Military sources are baffled by the decision to privatise RAF intelligence-gathering tasks to help Israel, questioning why the government hasn’t pulled support after photographs emerged of starving Palestinians.
Abdulkarim Sobh, aged five months, was surviving on only water in Gaza City last week
HAMZA ZH QRAIQEA/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES)
A senior British military source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “Instead of sending a message to Israel that we aren’t going to do surveillance for you, we are happy to hire an American company and pay for it.”
They said the aircraft being used by the US firm was “essentially the same aircraft [as Shadow], being [run] by a civilian company who are for hire. They have US security clearances and therefore allied nations who trust the US can hire them. This is about support for Israel”.
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Helen Maguire, defence spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats, said the MoD’s use of a private American company to carry out surveillance “raises alarm bells about the UK’s sovereign intelligence-gathering”.
She added: “The shortage of RAF aircraft for this purpose is alarming and there are serious questions to answer about whether this is a direct result of failures of the UK government to properly invest in these capabilities. More broadly, it’s right that the UK is supporting efforts to locate the hostages, but the government must outline what steps it has taken to ensure Israel can’t use UK-sourced intelligence for its military operations in Gaza.
“We need to be taking every measure necessary to ensure the UK is not contributing to the immense human suffering which we’re seeing in Gaza.”
There are no hostages with British citizenship left in Gaza, although one Israeli hostage has a British mother. On Monday, British government sources confirmed that its surveillance flights over Gaza continued.
Palestine Deep Dive, a Substack publication, first spotted the US plane flying for over an hour above Khan Yunis on July 28, raising questions about whether the US, UK or Israel had leased it.
Research for The Times by Steffan Watkins, a Canadian consultant who tracks aircraft and ship movements, confirmed the aircraft had carried out its first operational flight from RAF Akrotiri on July 20.
On July 28, the aircraft did not fully turn off its transponder, which meant it could be identified as flying over southern Gaza. Watkins said this marked the first time since December 2023, when the RAF started carrying out its surveillance missions over the territory, that the UK flights could be confirmed as operating over Gaza, rather than adjacent to it.
A UK military source described it as a “schoolboy error” that would not have happened if the plane had been operated by RAF pilots.
Since July 31, tracking data has shown the US aircraft on the ground at RAF Akrotiri momentarily, but not near Gaza. Watkins suggested an explanation, given that the Gaza flights continue: the contractor may be turning off the transponder before take-off. This could not be proven.
Watkins recorded 600 flights by the RAF’s Shadow fleet over the territory between December 2023 and July this year. The flights were carried out almost daily, although the pilots took Saturday off. A government source suggested there would be “several hard drives” of intelligence available as a result.