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| British R1 Shadow surveillance aircraft |
Declassified UK, a British open source intelligence website that appears to be anti-Israel, reports that they have seen evidence of regular British flights over Gaza by planes whose job is to gather intel:
The UK military has flown 50 surveillance missions over Gaza since December, it can be revealed.The flights have taken off from Britain’s controversial air base on Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, and averaged around one a day since the beginning of December.The British plane used is the Shadow R1, which is known as an intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR) aircraft.The Shadow R1 is operated by the UK military’s No.14 Squadron, which is based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, east England.The British flights began on 3 December when two R1s flew over Gaza. The flights have continued nearly daily up until now, with around half the days featuring two flights. On 3 January, the British sent an R1 over Gaza three times.The flights appear to last around six hours.
The purpose of the flights has not been revealed, although UK officials have given two separate reasons for these flights.
One is to help search for British hostages in Gaza. There are two British citizens there.
The other, mentioned in November, came from an answer to a question to Parliament:
A total of 12 aircraft have deployed to the eastern Mediterranean. These flights have provided surveillance support to Israel, including preventing the transfer of weapons to terrorist groups, and to wider regional security. They have also delivered humanitarian aid into Egypt.
It is unclear whether the UK is sharing the information gathered with Israel, and what kinds of data it can gather than Israel cannot with its own technology.
The same site had previously reported on a 2008 Wikileaks cable that said the US was routinely operating spy missions from that same British airbase in Cyprus but that memo mentioned Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq, not Gaza. But the US has stated that they are using their own drones and flying over Gaza to help with the hostage rescue efforts.
