Abdullah Farooq and Matt Kennard
Jul 02, 2025
Britain’s Labour government has secretly allowed at least three Israeli Air Force (IAF) planes involved in the bombing of Gaza to land in the UK since it took office, according to flight data reviewed by Drop Site News.
Israeli Air Force “Re’em” air-to-air refueling plane 272 flies from Israel to the United States via RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, England, on October 13, 2024. (Image: Overlaid ADS-B data)
The KC-707 “Re’em” aerial refueling planes stopped in Britain on trips between Israel and the U.S. on nine separate occasions from September 2024 through June 2025. Eight of the nine IAF flights spent between 1 to 3 hours in the UK before flying on to their destination, indicating they could have been refueling in Britain.
The planes were blocked on commercial flight tracking databases but Drop Site was able to identify them through unfiltered flight transponder data.
The Re’em military planes have been seen refueling Israeli F-35 fighter jets on bombing missions, and Drop Site has found two of the same aircraft providing refueling and logistics support to Israeli fighter jets during bombing missions over Gaza.
All the planes landed at RAF Brize Norton, the largest airbase in Britain, located in Oxfordshire. One of these Israeli planes was in the sky over Gaza around the time of two apparent war crimes, including in October 2024, when the IAF bombed a residential complex in the northern city of Beit Lahiya, killing 73 people.
Brize Norton was recently targeted by the non-violent activist group Palestine Action over UK military participation in Israel’s war on Gaza, which resulted in an order from the British Home Secretary to proscribe them as a terrorist organization. The activists sprayed red paint on two Voyager aircraft.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, now independent MP for Islington North, recently proposed a bill in parliament to establish an independent inquiry into the extensive but opaque UK role in Israel’s assault on Gaza. “Israeli F-35 jets are bombing hospitals and civilians in Gaza,” he told Drop Site. “It is simply unconscionable that Britain would allow any Israeli warplanes to refuel on British bases—and implicates the government in the gravest breaches of international law.”
The current Labour-run Ministry of Defence (MoD) did not answer questions from Drop Site about the IAF flights in Britain, including whether the planes were refuelling in the UK. The department claimed it does not offer a running commentary on foreign nations military aircraft movements within the UK.
An MoD spokesperson instead stated, “It is routine for the UK to authorise requests from international partners for access to UK bases.” “We continue to work with allies and partners to support de-escalation in the Middle East,” they added.
‘Unconscionable’
The new information raises further questions about British ministers’ complicity in war crimes, after they ordered hundreds of UK spy flights over Gaza in support of Israel and sent thousands of munitions to the country after it began its assault on the Palestinian territory.
The flights have been landing in Britain secretly. The Labour government, which took office in July 2024, has refused to provide any information about IAF use of UK airports and military sites.
In February, the MoD was asked in parliament how many IAF planes had landed in Britain over the previous year. Labour defense minister Luke Pollard replied: “For operational security reasons and as a matter of policy, the Ministry of Defence will neither confirm, deny, nor comment on any foreign nations’ military aircraft movement or operations within UK airspace or UK overseas bases.”
This was a departure from the previous Conservative administration, which had told parliament in February 2024 that nine IAF planes had landed in Britain since the bombing of Gaza began five months before.
Conservative defense minister James Heappey said: “These figures are based on official requests for diplomatic flight clearance that have been submitted by the Israeli Embassy in London, subsequently cleared by Ministry of Defence.”
Corbyn told Drop Site: “Just last week, the government refused to back my call for an independent, public inquiry into the UK’s involvement in Israeli military operations in Gaza. This damning revelation helps to explain why. We are not going away. We will expose the full scale of British complicity, and we will bring about justice for the Palestinian people.”
Referring to the UK government’s move to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group, Corbyn added: “As the government criminalises those engaged in protesting a genocide, it continues to shamefully facilitate the real violence these protestors oppose.”
On Monday, the UK’s High Court rejected a case brought by campaigners trying to stop the transfer to Israel of British-made parts for F-35 fighter jets, saying it didn’t have the constitutional authority to intervene.
The Flights
Planes coming to the UK from Israel have arrived from Hatzor airbase in central Israel, also known as Kanaf 4 (Wing 4), as well as other bases in the country that could not be definitively confirmed.
All the “Re’em” planes arriving from the U.S. arrived from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, which hosts the 436th Airlift Wing and is the Department of Defense’s busiest and largest air freight terminal. The first shipment of U.S. weapons to Israel after it began bombing Gaza left Dover on October 10, 2023.
The first six visits to the UK by the IAF under Labour’s watch were all the same plane, which carried the registration 272, a unique code given to every aircraft.
It arrived in Britain for the first time on September 27, 2024, just weeks after Labour had announced it was suspending 29 arms licenses for Israel for weapons that could be used in Gaza citing potential violations of international humanitarian law. It arrived again two days later, on September 29.
It landed at Brize Norton two times the following month, on October 13 and 15, 2024, with another visit on November 18. There was a brief hiatus after that, with the IAF plane with registration 272 landing next at Brize Norton on March 4, 2025, after which it traveled to the U.S. and then back to Brize Norton on March 6. An independent aviationist account claimed that this landing in Britain involved refueling.
Another IAF “Re’em,” this time with registration 275, landed at Brize Norton two months later, on May 4, 2025, before flying on to Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. The final IAF “Re’em”, with registration 264, landed in Britain last month, on June 9. This plane spent over 13 hours on the ground at Brize Norton.
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“Re’em” in Gaza
The “Re’em” is a modified version of the Boeing 707 aircraft and used to refuel fighter jets mid-flight. They are on standby during bombing missions in case the bombers start to run low on fuel. The plane also carries a satellite communications suite which is used to provide secure information sharing with fighter jets such as the F-15, F-16, and F-35.
Deployment of “Re’em” aircraft thus serves a critical role enabling Israeli fighter jets to engage in hours of bombing over Gaza. A F-35 pilot has commented: “The most critical benefit of air refueling is it allows us to project and sustain air power. Tankers allow us to fly indefinitely. Even if I was running my power settings as efficiently as possible, I could only stay airborne for about two hours.”
The plane with registration 272 was airborne over Gaza around the time of two apparent war crimes targeting civilians, according to the flight records—including one that took place only days after returning from the UK.
On October 19, 2024, four days after it had been at RAF Brize Norton, the “Re’em” aircraft with registration 272 appeared directly over Gaza at 7:32 p.m. local time, less than 5km away from Beit Lahiya, a city in north Gaza. Three hours later, at 11:20 p.m., the IAF bombed a residential complex in Beit Lahiya killing at least 73 people.
On October 24, 2024, nine days after traveling to the UK, the same 272 aircraft was located at 9:30 p.m. less than 5 miles from Jabalia camp. An hour later, at 10:40 p.m., airstrikes were recorded destroying apartment blocks in Jabalia. The aircraft remained airborne patrolling the airspace near Gaza until it was recorded at 10:36 p.m. near Ashdod, a coastal city near Tel Aviv, flying towards Hatzor Airbase.
Another “Re’em” aircraft with registration 275 that flew once to RAF Brize Norton in May 2025 has also been recorded flying near Gaza on at least three occasions.
Israeli bombers at RAF Akrotiri
The UK military and intelligence establishment has been directly involved in Israel’s assault on Gaza from the beginning.
Since December 2023, near-daily Shadow R1 spy flights have been sent over Gaza by the Royal Air Force, with the intelligence passed on to the Israelis. The UK government has still not divulged the type or intelligence gathered—or which Israeli government departments it has been giving it to.
The UK’s sprawling airbase on Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, also quickly became the international hub for supplying and supporting Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Akrotiri has long been the staging post for British bombing campaigns in the Middle East, and sits 180 miles from Gaza. The flight time is 40 minutes.
Controversially, the UK government has refused to say if Israeli F-35 fighter jets have had access to RAF Akrotiri. Kenny MacAskill, then Alba MP for East Lothian, asked the MoD in March 2024 if any Israeli F-35s had landed at Akrotiri since the Gaza bombing began. The department refused to answer.
This came after a Daily Express report the month before, which quoted “senior sources” within the UK military telling the newspaper that Israeli F-35s had until recently had access to the UK’s Cyprus base. Israeli F-35s, the sources said, had “a facility to render technical assistance at the RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus.”
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