News- Middle East: The UK has moved its spy flight operations over the Gaza Strip in support of Israel’s genocidal war from directly-operated Royal Air Force (RAF) planes to aircraft belonging to a US military contractor, an investigative report reveals.

The report, published by Palestine Deep Dive on Monday, said the RAF has since December 2023 been flying Beechcraft King Air 350 planes over Gaza and sharing the intelligence with Israel, but the program appears to have ceased and is instead being undertaken by new US-leased private planes.

The British planes, which are called Shadow R1s in UK service, have flown near-daily from RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s sprawling airbase in Cyprus, for almost the entire duration of Israel’s aggression on Gaza.

The routes flown to support the Israeli occupation forces in the besieged territory were exposed as one of the US plane’s pilots apparently forgot to turn off its transponder while over the Palestinian territory.

“For the 20 months of UK spy flights over Gaza for Israel, the planes had turned off their transponder about halfway to Gaza so activity over Gaza had stayed secret,” the report said.

“On 28 July, however, the newly-trained US plane took off at 8 pm and forgot to turn off its transponder. The flight path of a surveillance flight from RAF Akrotiri was visible for the first time. It shows the plane reaching Gaza at 9 pm and circling over southern Gaza for an hour and half, concentrating its surveillance efforts over Khan Younis and surrounding areas.”

The new planes belong to Straight Flight Nevada Commercial Leasing LLC, a company based in Sparks, Nevada, on the west coast of the United States. It is a subsidiary of the larger Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), which was the 53rd largest military contractor in the world in 2021.

The Nevada-based SNC, as the report said, operates a “contractor-owned, contractor-operated” (COCO) aircraft program specifically for surveillance flights, providing aircraft and pilots to clients.

The report stressed that the COCO system is designed for clients to operate spy planes with limited oversight and accountability and, “There is evidence that the US military has leased Sierra Nevada Corporation planes.”

Deep Dive said it tracked the new US plane flying for three hours over Khan Yunis on July 28 and, “The following day, Israeli airstrikes with civilian casualties were reported in the same area.”

Sierra Nevada Corporation has also worked extensively with the US military to develop its intelligence-gathering capabilities, having been awarded various multi-billion-dollar contracts to serve as the lead system integrator for its future long-range spy planes.

Backed by the US, the Israeli regime has been ravaging the besieged Gaza Strip since Operation al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, killing more than 60,000 Palestinians and wounding upwards of 150,000 others up to now. Most of the victims are women and children, as indiscriminate Israeli attacks target schools, mosques, and even tents that shelter displaced Palestinians.

Israel’s relentless bombardment campaign has devastated the territory and led to food shortages, famine, and acute starvation.

Despite increasing international criticism over the regime’s heinous crimes in Gaza, the US continues to provide military support to Israel and ignores warnings that such transfers make it complicit in the war and further destruction in the territory.

In late May, Tel Aviv reported receiving more than 90,000 tons of American military equipment over 600 days, stating that the arms have played a "key role" in its Gaza operations.

Source: Press TV