Help Declassified expose the powerful by joining us: https://www.declassifieduk.org/join/ A US military contractor hired by Britain to conduct surveillance over Gaza operated above Nuseirat refugee camp the night before an Israeli bombing killed over 30 Palestinians in December 2024. Read more: https://www.declassifieduk.org/us-fle... On the evening of 12 December 2024, Israel bombed the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza without warning. A post office sheltering displaced families was hit; nearby houses were shredded. More than 30 Palestinians were killed and over 50 wounded. Entire families died, their names posted online within minutes. Declassified can now reveal that a spy plane owned by a US contractor to whom the RAF is outsourcing its spy flights circled over Nuseirat refugee camp the night before the bombing. Publicly available flight-tracking data show that in the hours before the blast, and again afterwards, two surveillance aircraft operating from RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s military base on Cyprus, circled close to or over Gaza. One of these was a RAF Shadow R1 (registration ZZ419) surveillance plane that flew towards Gaza in mid-afternoon before vanishing from public tracking near the territory. But the other belonged to Straight Flight Nevada Commercial Leasing LLC, a subsidiary of America’s Sierra Nevada Corporation. This was a Beechcraft Super King Air 350 with the registration N60125 and call sign CROOK11. The presence of this US aircraft alongside RAF spy planes raises uncomfortable questions about whether British intelligence, directly or indirectly, assisted Israel’s targeting of the camp. Further, the presence of the US contractor over Gaza as early as December 2024 appears to contradict the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) claim that the company was only hired to take over the missions in recent weeks due to strain on RAF’s Shadow R1 fleet. The MoD insists the flights are “unarmed” and “solely related to hostage rescue”, and denies aiding Israel’s prosecution of the war. But there is no known mechanism to ensure that data shared with the Israeli authorities is not repurposed for attacks in serious violations of international humanitarian law.
