On 4 March a giant US B-52 bomber took off from the US air force base at Fairford in Gloucestershire to fly alongside Israeli F-35 and F-16 warplanes over the eastern Mediterranean.
Also taking part in the exercise was the RAF, whose media release on the subject failed to mention the participation of the Israelis. The RAF stated that it “escorted” the US bombers and “carried out integration training as part of several US Bomber Task Force sorties to the region”.
Declassified asked the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about the RAF flying with the Israeli Air Force (IAF). A spokesperson would only say: “We regularly operate with our partners and allies in the region and this series of sorties was in direct support of a US Bomber Task Force Mission.”
Fourteen days later, the same IAF broke the nominal ceasefire in Gaza by resuming devastating air strikes in the territory, this time killing over 400 Palestinians.
It’s probably no surprise the RAF wants to keep its collusion with the IAF hidden. That force has been responsible for atrocity after atrocity in Gaza, in thousands of attacks.
Amnesty International has documented several unlawful Israeli air attacks on Gaza – including indiscriminate ones – which caused mass civilian casualties and which “must be investigated as suspected war crimes”.
Similarly, a UN report monitored “six emblematic attacks” by the IAF in late 2023 involving the suspected use of GBU-31 (2,000 lbs), GBU-32 (1,000 lbs) and GBU-39 (250 lbs) bombs on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market.
It said that this “widespread destruction of civilian objects” raises “serious concerns under the laws of war”.
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Meetings in London
Yet Britain is not shying away from continuing to collaborate with the IAF. On 5 February, the MoD hosted a group of IAF officers in London.
“Brigadier General Yaval Harel, Israeli Air Force Head of Personnel Division, led an Israeli Air Force delegation of nine personnel as part of a three-day HR-focussed visit to the UK”, defence minister Luke Pollard told parliament.
The government spelt his name wrong – it should be Yuval – and the UK national media predictably ignored the meeting. Harel, a former fighter pilot himself, was previously commander of the IAF’s aviation school which presumably trained many of the pilots who are now bombing Gaza.
The massacres in the territory have not stopped high level meetings between the RAF and IAF. In January 2024, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the head of the RAF, visited Israel for purposes which were undeclared in the government data.
When pressed in parliament, the UK government later said that Knighton’s visit was “to discuss the longstanding defence relationship, encourage de-escalation and compliance with international humanitarian law, and promote long-term peace in the region”.
In fact, the meeting took place just before Israel’s bombardment in Gaza had reached 100 days, with at least 24,620 people already killed and with an estimated 70 percent of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure destroyed, much at the hands of the IAF.
On his trip, Knighton was hosted by the IAF’s Commanding Officer, Major General Tomer Bar. Bar had said the previous November that IAF operations in the territory would mean that “the face of Gaza will change, every munition of the tens of thousands of munitions dropped is on intelligence-based targets, hitting Hamas operatives, commanders, the organization’s infrastructure and its headquarters”.
Bar also issued a wider warning, saying: “The Israeli Air Force, as the strategic wing of the State of Israel, is prepared and operates throughout the Middle East, wherever it is needed – in every place”.
This was the last known meeting of the two air force chiefs since Knighton’s predecessor, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, met Israel’s Major General Amikam Norkin in Israel in March 2021.
Wigston was then given a tour of three Israeli air force bases and took part in a joint flight with Norkin on an Israeli fighter jet. Norkin, who left office in 2022, said at the time that “the connection with the British Air Force is very important to the Israeli Air Force”.
“We will continue to promote strategic collaborations with the goal of continuing to learn from each other, improving and strengthening ourselves along the way”, he added.
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IAF in UK
Even more secrecy surrounds IAF planes landing in the UK. At least three Israeli transport flights from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire – the RAF’s main operating base – took place in October and November last year.
Two of the flights went to the US Air Force base at Dover in Delaware. The third arrived from Dover and flew out to Israel’s main air force station at Nevatim in the south of the country.
There are suspicions that these flights were carrying US arms. Israeli aircraft packed with “advanced weaponry” have been reported as regularly flying from Dover to Nevatim since Israel began its destruction of Gaza.
In February 2024, the government admitted that nine IAF aircraft had taken off and landed from British territory since the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023. But the MoD has refused to tell parliament what the Israeli aircraft have been carrying.
Surveillance
Do the RAF’s surveillance flights over Gaza help the IAF in its targeting operations in the territory? The UK government says the purpose of its spy missions, which have taken off from Britain’s base on Cyprus over 500 times since 7 October 2023, is solely to locate hostages.
But Action on Armed Violence AOAV found the RAF conducted 24 flights in the two weeks leading up to Israel’s attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp in June 2024, which reportedly killed 274 Palestinians.
While four Israeli hostages were rescued in the operation, it remains unclear whether British intelligence directly contributed to the attack or was solely used to locate hostages.
Declassified found that, during the ceasefire in January and February this year, the RAF was operating spy flights only on days that Hamas was releasing hostages. This raised the prospect that Israel could use such intelligence if it resumed its brutal assault on Gaza – which it did.
Declassified has also raised concerns that RAF flight paths over Gaza may be informed by intelligence Israel obtained through torture.
Testimony from three Palestinian civilians alleges Israeli troops interrogated them about the location of hostages and tunnels while under extreme torture.
The RAF clearly holds thousands of hours of video surveillance footage of Gaza during a genocide. It could use that to halt it but it has refused to publish that footage.
The MoD has conceded, however: “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.”
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Exercising with Israel
Suspicions remain as to what skills Israeli pilots now bombing Gaza have honed as a result of practising with the RAF in recent years.
In 2019, the Israel air force undertook its first-ever deployment of fighter jets to Britain with Israeli F-15 warplanes taking part in a joint combat exercise with the RAF.
This involved “three weeks of intensive training” including in “conflict situations that could be encountered in operations”, the RAF said.
The exercise was based out of the RAF Waddington air base in Lincolnshire, home to Britain’s intelligence-gathering aircraft. “The Israeli F-15s took part in air-to-air operations in mock dogfights and aircraft interceptions, as well as simulated ground attacks”, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
In fact, RAF pilots are also considerably reliant on Israeli technology. Israel’s largest arms company, Elbit Systems, which extensively supplies the Israeli military, provides and maintains three fleets of aircraft for the RAF’s Military Flying Training Scheme.
Elbit’s joint venture with US multinational KBR, funded by the MoD, operates out of RAF Valley in Wales and RAF Cranwell and RAF Barkston Heath, both in Lincolnshire. It has delivered over 50,000 pilot training hours since 2016.
While supporting the RAF, Elbit also provides aircraft and maintenance to train Israeli pilots in Israel.
‘Modern fighting’
The IAF, established in 1948, was based on the structure of the RAF, the Israel Defense Forces says. British military leaders apparently can’t stop admiring it. Last December, the head of the British military, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, praised the IAF for its “modern ways of fighting” in its response to Iran. This came several months after RAF fighter jets aided Israel by shooting down several drones fired at Israel from Iran.
Radakin said in a speech in London: “I won’t go into detail, but in October’s retaliatory strikes again Iran, Israel used more than 100 aircraft, carrying fewer than 100 munitions, and with no aircraft getting within 100 miles of the target in the first wave, and that took down nearly the entirety of Iran’s air defence system”.
“It has destroyed Iran’s ability to produce ballistic missiles for a year, and left Tehran with a strategic dilemma in how it responds. That is the power of 5th generation aircraft, combined with exquisite targeting and extraordinary intelligence. And that was all delivered from a single sortie!”
Radakin didn’t say anything about the IAF’s sheer brutality in attacking Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
