Britain’s ongoing involvement in Israeli military operations in Gaza “opens the UK up to charges of complicity in war crimes”, an opposition politician has told Declassified.

Liz Saville Roberts MP spoke out after seeing UK spy flights continue to surveil Gaza despite Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu now being wanted for war crimes.

Flight tracking data shows Royal Air Force surveillance planes over the besieged enclave have not been interrupted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing arrest warrants.

Although ministers claim the flights, which began last year, are solely looking for hostages, Saville Roberts said “there is a clear risk that the information shared with Israel from these flights may have been used in attacks on civilians.”

Labour has also refused to implement a complete arms embargo on Israel. Spare parts for Israel’s most advanced fighter jet, the F-35, can still be shipped to Tel Aviv if they go via the US.

Human rights lawyers say this loophole is “unconscionable”. General Herzi Halevi, the Israeli army’s chief of staff, was even allowed to visit the UK on Monday for talks with military officials.

Sharing intel with war criminals?

UK contact with Israel’s military has come under increasing scrutiny since the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant last week.

Both men are accused by the ICC of “the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population” and using “starvation as a method of warfare”.

Britain is sending surveillance flights over Gaza almost every day to gather intelligence for Israel, claiming it could find hostages held by Hamas.

Saville Roberts, who leads the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru in Westminster, told Declassified: “There is a clear risk that the information shared with Israel from these flights may have been used in attacks on civilians.”

She said: “The UK has been unable to explain how it guarantees that the information it has shared has not been used to aid unlawful attacks by the Israeli military.

“While it is possible to accept that some reconnaissance flights will rightly be seeking information with the objective of freeing the remaining hostages, the sheer number of flights raises the question whether this is their sole purpose.”

There have been hundreds of surveillance flights by the RAF over Gaza since last December, none of which have resulted in the release of two British hostages taken by Hamas.

One of them, Nadav Popplewell, died earlier this year during Israeli military operations near Khan Younis.

‘Enabling war crimes’

Israel has rescued just seven non-British hostages since the UK spy flights started, compared to 105 people released through earlier negotiations.

Israeli forces extracted four people from Nuseirat refugee camp in June during an operation in which 274 Palestinians were reported killed.

Two hostages were rescued from Rafah in February in a mission which saw Israeli jets bombard the area in advance, killing more than 100 people according to Palestine’s Red Crescent Society.

RAF surveillance flights were operating over Gaza hours before and after both raids.

Saville Roberts said: “It is right to seek answers as to whether there is any possibility of these flights being interpreted in international law as enabling war crimes.

“The Government must show complete transparency on this issue and provide all information it has collected and shared with Israel, to the International Criminal Court.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “The UK’s operational mandate is narrowly defined to focus on securing the release of the hostages only, including British nationals, with the RAF routinely conducting unarmed flights since December 2023 for this sole purpose.”

‘Extermination campaign’

Labour’s continued arms supplies for Israel have also concerned Saville Roberts. She said “the UK must also enact a full arms embargo to the region, including all components of the F-35 fighter jet”.

Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq and its lawyers from the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) intend to apply for an emergency injunction to stop all arms exports to Israel.

GLAN lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe said, “It is unconscionable that the UK continues to allow British-made components for F-35s to be used in Israel’s extermination campaign against Palestinians.

“As of Thursday, the UK is now arming suspected war criminals who have been indicted by the world’s pre-eminent criminal court.”

Al-Haq spokesperson Zainah El-Haroun said the ICC arrest warrants “add to the insurmountable evidence that British weapons, particularly F-35 components, are being used to commit international crimes, including genocide.”