This is how the UK is supporting Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

Harry Carter

Evidence from several investigations shows how the UK government supports Israel as they continue to slaughter Palestinian civilians.

Reporting from journalists has revealed that the UK is aiding the Israeli government militarily to carry out their attacks on Palestine in several ways:

• The UK continues to supply arms and military contracts to Israel.
• British airspace and RAF airbases have been used in the re-supply of weapons and munitions to Israel.
• Over the period of a year, British taxpayers have paid for just under half of all the surveillance flights over the Gaza strip.
• Israeli soldiers are reported to have received training on UK soil since October 7^th 2023 and UK spy teams have been deployed to Israel to assist militarily.

Genocide in Gaza

The equivalent to Welsh, Scottish, Irish and English towns and cities have been flattened in Gaza.

The Palestinian people which make up these youthful communities have been killed in their tens of thousands by Israel and are buried alongside the rubble.

The statistics hide the horrors behind every name. At this point, the number of people dead is so large that there is a growing sea of untold stories – loved ones and entire families wiped out.

If all their stories were to be reported on TV, there would be no time for other programmes to be aired.

The latest number of Palestinians killed can be found here, at the time of writing it is 62,614. Unfortunately, as noted in a piece penned for the prestigious British Medical Journal, The Lancet, the true number dead is likely to be multiple times higher than currently reported.

Accomplices to the crime

The genocide taking place in Gaza is a transnational project, requiring the participation of western countries who provide the economic, military and political support for Israel to prosecute its attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The state of Israel is actively under investigation for a ‘plausible genocide’ against the Palestinian people by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the previous minister of defence Yoav Gallan for war crimes.

Despite this, the UK continues to support the Israeli state extensively.

1. Spy Planes

The UK government was responsible for nearly half of all the reconnaissance flights over Gaza from October 2023 to October 2024. The UK used its Shadow R1 spy planes to collect at least 645 flights worth of intelligence, which were shared with Israel and financed by the British taxpayer.

Meanwhile, according to the same report using open source flight data by Al-Jazeera, Israel conducted just 20% of the reconnaissance flights over Gaza in the same period. The result: British taxpayers footing the bill for Israel’s military intelligence, while there is a cost of living crisis and Rachel Reeves is busy making cuts to vital social spending programmes at home.

2. Israel’s use of UK airbases and airspace

Reporting by Declassified’s investigative journalists has revealed that UK airbases have been used by the Israeli airforce. The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) has previously refused to deny that Israeli F-35 fighter jets (known to have been used to bomb Gaza during the course of the war) have used Britain’s military airbase in Cyprus.

The RAF airbase Akrotiri, located in Cyprus, plays a crucial role in the re-arming of Israel. International flights containing munitions and military equipment from Israel’s allies stop off at the RAF airbase prior to arrival in Israel.

Many international military flights arrive in Israel via either Tel Aviv or the Nevatim military airbase. The Nevatim Airbase is frequently used to launch attacks on Gaza and Tel Aviv provides it with military supplies. British R1 spy planes fly from RAF Akrotiri to Gaza to collect intelligence on behalf of Israel and are also known to have used the Israeli Nevatim airbase.

Further reporting by Sanad, Al-jazzera’s verification agency, shows that UK mainland RAF airbases and the same UK military base in Cyprus have been used to facilitate the transport of arms and weapons to Israel.

The support by the UK in the creation of these ‘weapons air bridges’ for bombs and munitions to be re-supplied to the Israeli military, at the same time that the state of Israel is actively under investigation for a ‘plausible genocide’ by the ICJ, has almost certainly allowed the ferocity of Israel’s massacre to continue in Gaza and across the region.

3. F-35 Fighter Jets

As reported by Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the British Labour government allows vital parts needed for Israeli F-35 fighter jets to be sent to Israel as part of the UK’s role in providing parts to the F-35 global supply-chain programme.

These specialist parts are required by Israeli F-35 fighter jets in order to stay operational and to continue dropping up to 2,000 pound bombs onto Palestinians and their homes in Gaza.

The decision by the UK to allow the provision of specialist parts for Israeli F-35s alongside other military exports is currently being challenged by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq in the UK courts.

In an embarrassing result for the UK Labour government, they had to admit during a High Court hearing in 2024 that “Israel is not committed to complying with international humanitarian law” by the UK’s own legal assessment.

The High Court has now ruled that the UK government must attend court in May 2025, due to GLAN and Al-Haq’s legal challenge, to face a full hearing over the UK’s export of F-35 and military components to Israel

4. British Companies

While Palestinians continue to die, British-based arms manufacturing companies like Elbit Systems with locations in Wales and England, and BAE Systems with locations in England and Scotland, continue to profit by providing critical parts and weapons to an Israeli government under investigation for numerous war crimes.

5. Israeli Troops on UK soil

It has also been reported by Declassified that Israeli Soldiers have received training in the UK since October 7^th 2023, with the UK government confirming these claims. Little information about the content of the training is publicly known.

6. UK Spy teams in Israel

Israeli officials have revealed to The New York Times that the UK has had a spy team deployed inside Israel for the duration of the conflict to assist in providing ‘intelligence’ for Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

19 Months of Horror

Over a year into the attacks, the UK Labour government has halted less than 10% of military exports to Israel.  Meanwhile, senior Israeli political figures continue to express their intentions. This includes the minister of Defence for the majority of the conflict, Yoav Gallan – who as early as the 9^th of October 2023 said:

 “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” and “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

As legal experts have noted, it is a war crime to collectively punish the Palestinian population as a whole for the Hamas and Islamic Jihad October 7^th attacks, which massacred 863 civilians including at a music festival, killed 319 personnel from the Israeli security services and led to the kidnapping of 251 hostages (including 41 dead bodies counted among the civilian deaths noted above).

For over two months, Israel has once again cut off all aid, including food, from entering Gaza. On the 9^th of March 2025, Israel cut Gaza’s last remaining electricity supply. This means that water desalination plants and water pumps will cease to operate without the necessary fuel and electricity needed to keep them running.

In total, 18 British nationals were killed and 2 were taken hostage on October the 7^th. One of the British hostages was released alive in 2025 and the other British national, 51-year-old Nadav Popplewell, did not survive.

To date, it is still unknown how many people were killed on October the 7^th due to Israeli friendly fire and the use of the hannibal directive, which instructs the Israeli military to prevent “at all costs” the abduction of Israeli civilians or soldiers.

Attacks on Aid Agencies

Over a year on from when Yoav Gallan’s incriminating statement was made, the Israeli equivalent to the UK parliament, known as the Knesset, voted overwhelmingly to ban The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from operating in Israel and all Israeli occupied territories.

The vote to ban UNRWA follows a pattern of continued attacks on aid agencies by Israel in the Gaza strip. This includes the killing of 7 World Kitchen workers, including 3 Britons (John Chapman, aged 57, James Henderson, aged 33, and James Kirby, aged 47) in a targeted strike on their NGO marked vehicles after they had just unloaded 100 tonnes of food aid.

At the time of writing, over 280 UN staff have been killed by Israel in Gaza. There has been a systemic destruction of public facilities by the Israeli military, including hospitals, schools and bakeries, and the blocking of food and vital medical supplies into Palestinian territory.

UNRWA is considered by many professionals to be the most important aid agency for Palestinians. This is because they are the only aid agency that can provide, at scale, the lifesaving infrastructure and food needed to sustain the aprox. 6 million Palestinian refugees forcibly displaced by Israel across the middle east, including over 2 million Palestinians trapped and besieged by the Israeli army in the Gaza strip.

The withholding and weaponization of aid against the Palestinian population by Netanyahu’s  government and the use of starvation against a civilian population, of which nearly half of whom are children, are clear red lines for governments around the world and British aid organisations. So, why does Keir Starmer and his government see fit to maintain normal relations with a state that does not abide by international humanitarian law?

Political accomplices or failures?

By any metrics, the UK Conservative and Labour governments’ approach to dealing with Benjamin Netanyahu has failed.

Sunak and Starmer’s governments have provided the political cover for Netanyahu to operate with impunity and continually subvert attempts to end the conflict. Instead of shaking hands and posing for photos, David Lammy should have been applying tangible pressure on the Israeli government to capitulate to international calls for a ceasefire, bring the hostages home, begin the recognition of a Palestinian state, and take steps towards a lasting peace.

The political choices being made by Keir Starmer and his cabinet over the genocide in Gaza are all the more egregious as 15 UK NGOs, including Oxfam, Amnesty International & Medical Aid for Palestinians, wrote to the government in October 2024 and reported that:

“Gaza is being erased before our eyes, violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is worsening, and Israeli military attacks on Lebanon continue to escalate, causing untold civilian suffering and threatening to replicate the conditions in Gaza.”

US and UK doctors working in Gaza have reported seeing children with gunshot wounds to their heads and chests, and a UN Commission has reported that Israel is committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination in Gaza.

Until now, Prime minister Kier Starmer has not used his position of power to place sanctions, or put in place a trade and full arms embargo, on the Israeli government despite the mounting war crimes they continue to commit.

The value of life and for whom

At this stage, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either dead, maimed, starving or displaced, there are no excuses. What more do Keir Starmer and his front bench need to see to act? Nineteen-year-old Sha’ban al-Dalou being burnt to death in a hospital tent while connected to an IV drip is not enough? Or hearing 6-year-old Hind Rajab’s desperate cry for help that was recorded in her last moments:

“I’m so scared, please come. Come take me. Please, will you come?”

Her words were heard just moments before she was killed by the Israeli Army’s 162nd Division surrounded by dead family members in a car.

The 162nd is the same Israeli Army division that then went on to kill two paramedics, who were in their ambulance, en-route to try and save the child.

Will the British government keep enabling Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians? How many of these countless crimes need to play out for it to be enough for Labour ministers?

What is crystal clear is that there is a lack of value placed on Palestinian lives by the UK government. This is exemplified through the absence of meaningful action on part of the government even when confronted with evidence of a genocide and war crimes.

The reality is this UK government’s foreign policy position on Israel would not be tolerated if these atrocities were being committed to European or American citizens. It is jarringly obvious that the Labour front bench is out of touch with their party members, constituents and the majority of the world at the United Nations.

Enough is enough

In 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon, then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ordered a full arms embargo on Israel. Meanwhile, 2025’s Keir Starmer, David Lammy and Anneliese Dodds choose to stand up in the house of commons and refuse to take meaningful action, even as a genocide perpetrated by Israel is live streamed to the world.

British politicians allow for UK airbases and airspace to be used in the re-supply of the Israeli military machine and UK ministers permit the use of British taxpayers’ money to finance half of the reconnaissance flights over Gaza, and all the while more bombs and bullets continue to rain down on Palestinian men, women and children.

To many, these UK government ministers and their top civil servants look to be complicit in the genocide taking place in Gaza. They are comfortable in their London flats and largely unaffected, all while they allow for critical weapons and parts to be supplied to Israel to the delight of the bank balances of British arms manufacturers.

In contrast, the reality for Palestinians in Gaza is stark.

As journalist Paraic O’Brien put it: “If every soul is a world of its own, in Gaza, whole galaxies are dying.”

A ray of hope

Despite such dark times, the good news is that there is a blueprint for applying pressure on a rogue state and affecting change when governments themselves fail to do so.

The global anti-apartheid movement to stop the practice of racist segregation in South Africa also had roots in the UK.

Citizens and organised labour carried out boycotts of South African goods, cultural and sporting events, blocked important military shipments, filed legal challenges and changed the political landscape inflicting a mounting economic and political cost on the South African government and their supporters.

These co-ordinated international efforts helped to see Nelson Mandela become the president of South Africa, while supporters of the apartheid regime now claim that they were always against racial segregation.

In a similar tradition, Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, the worlds largest, recently announced it had divested from Israel’s Paz Retail and Energy company which owns and operates infrastructure supplying energy to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

In the same week, Norway’s most powerful trade union federation, LO, has voted in favour of a full economic boycott of Israel.

Despite Israel’s efforts, there does exist the possibility of a prosperous future for Palestine.

It starts with holding those in power to account and taking action collectively. Currently, Starmer and his front bench continue to politically and militarily support and supply Netanyahu’s government as Israel brushes aside international law, starves the population and commits genocide in Gaza.

It’s time that changed.