MPs demand assurances RAF Gaza spy plane footage is being retained

British MPs have asked the government for assurances that any surveillance data collected by Royal Air Force flights over Gaza will not be destroyed.

The request is among a set of demands from the business and trade subcommittee on economic security, arms and export controls laid out in a letter to the business, defence and Middle East ministers following a tense hearing about UK arms exports to Israel on Monday.

The government has repeatedly said that the sole purpose of the hundreds of RAF flights sent over Gaza since December 2023 is for locating hostages held by Hamas.

However, experts say it is likely that the flights will have inadvertently picked up evidence of potential war crimes.

The defence ministry said last year that it would consider sharing potential evidence gathered by spy planes with the International Criminal Court if asked.

But it has remained unclear how - or if - the information is being stored and whether it is being shared with the Foreign Office to inform its assessments of Israel’s risk of committing genocide or other serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. 

The MPs have asked the ministers to clarify whether the Foreign Office has asked the Ministry of Defence for the intelligence from the reconnaissance flights for the assessments. 

“If the FCDO has requested this information, please detail what information was provided and how it informed the FCDO’s assessment. If the FCDO has not requested this information, please explain why not,” Liam Byrne, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, wrote in a letter addressed to Chris Bryant, the business and trade minister; Luke Pollard, defence minister; and Hamish Falconer, the Middle East minister.

F-35 questions continue

Over the past year or so, the subcommittee has doggedly pursued answers about the government’s arms export decision-making and policies in relation to the war in Gaza.

One major focus of the subcommittee has been on F-35 fighter jets and the continued export of UK-made components to a global F-35 pool which supplies Israel with spare parts.

'I do not understand how you can sit there and say the F-35s are not involved in Gaza when the Israeli Air Force is saying how many hours it has done'

- Charlie Maynard MP

The government has repeatedly said that, while it could stop F-35 components from going directly to Israel, it could not halt the export of the parts to the global pool without quickly disrupting the global F-35 fleet, which it said would threaten global peace and security.

Campaigners and human rights groups have accused the UK government of breaching its own human rights and international law obligations by continuing to allow their export to the pool.

The High Court ruled in May in a challenge brought by Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network that Britain’s decision to allow the parts to be sent to the global pool was lawful. 

The groups announced last month that they will appeal the decision. 

During Monday’s hearing, the Department for Business and Trade confirmed that there are currently 55 active licences for the export of military-use items to Israel, nine of which are related to the export of F-35 parts.

Middle East minister Falconer said he thought 40 of the 300 combat aircraft available to the Israelis were F-35s. The UK government is not notified about the use of the F-35 by Israel, he added, saying he suspected “that the F-35 is not used regularly”.

“I think the Israelis believed the strike in July 2024 was against a particularly high-value target, senior in the leadership of Hamas,” he said, referring to the 13 July attack which killed Mohammed Deif. The attack killed at least 90 Palestinians, including women and children, and injured over 300.

“We would be surprised if it were being used with any great regularity, but it is difficult to give the committee very precise answers on that, given the constraints on the information available.”

In response, Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard accused the government of being “wilfully ignorant” about the use of the fighter jet.

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“The Israeli Air Force itself has tweeted that, since October 2023, the service’s F-35s have flown more than 15,000 operational flight hours, taking part in thousands of sorties in all theatres,” said Maynard.

“I do not understand how you can sit there and say the F-35s are not involved in Gaza when the Israeli Air Force is saying how many hours it has done.”

Falconer responded: “With respect, Mr Maynard, in the year that I have been the minister, Israel has flown aircraft in lots of different places. A sortie is not the same as a strike, and it is to be expected that, with 40 aircraft, there is quite a lot done.”

Maynard again insisted that the government was being wilfully ignorant. “We have planes going over there and can see bombs being dropped. We can join those dots, and we are choosing not to,” he said.

“I am telling the committee,” Falconer responded, “that every piece of evidence that is before me and every piece of evidence that is before the foreign secretary, we consider.”

In their follow up letter, the committee has asked ministers to clarify whether the UK has asked Israel if F-35s have been used in Gaza beyond the attack that killed Deif and for a detailed breakdown and description of the exports under the 55 active licences.

The committee has asked for a response by 30 September.