The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that it holds detailed information on Royal Air Force surveillance flights conducted over Gaza since October 2023, yet maintains that disclosing even the total number of missions would pose a threat to national security. An internal review of a Freedom of Information request concludes that aggregate figures alone could prejudice defence capability, despite repeated public statements by ministers acknowledging that such flights took place.
The review, dated December 2025, relates to AOAV’s request earlier this summer seeking the exactr number of RAF spy flights undertaken over Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 7 July 2025.
The MOD concedes that the request was handled late and that it failed to specify exemptions within the statutory timeframe, breaching its duties under the Freedom of Information Act. Nevertheless, it said that the information AOAV sought is exempt under provisions relating to defence, national security, and intelligence bodies, and that the public interest favours secrecy.
What makes the position unusual is how little is actually being withheld, and how much is already on the public record.
Ministers have repeatedly told Parliament that the RAF conducted unarmed surveillance flights over Israel and Gaza from December 2023 onwards, solely to support hostage rescue. The internal review confirms this account and adds a further detail: the flights continued until 10 October 2025, ceasing only after a Gaza peace plan was agreed and the remaining hostages were released. What remains undisclosed is not the existence, purpose, or duration of the operation, but its scale.
According to the MOD, releasing a single figure could, when combined with other information in the public domain, provide adversaries with insight into British tactics, techniques, and procedures. Even high-level data, it argues, might allow hostile actors to infer patterns, frequencies, or operational priorities, thereby placing current or future missions at risk. On this basis, the department sets the threshold of harm at the highest level, asserting that disclosure would, rather than merely might, prejudice defence interests.
This reasoning sits awkwardly alongside established precedent. The RAF has previously published sortie numbers and mission counts for operations in Iraq and Syria under Operation Shader, without apparent damage to operational security.
The internal review acknowledges that such disclosures exist but insists that each case must be assessed individually.
It does not explain why Gaza represents a uniquely sensitive exception.
To be clear, AOAV’s request explicitly excluded operational detail such as flight paths, timings, or intelligence outcomes.
Over the same period of the flights, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza was the subject of sustained allegations of grave breaches of international humanitarian law by UN bodies and human rights organisations.
The UK government maintains that any defence activity involving Israel is subject to a rigorous Overseas Security and Justice Assistance assessment, designed to ensure compliance with human rights obligations. Yet without basic disclosure, such assurances cannot be meaningfully tested. As AOAV has reported, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have no possession of any Overseas Security and Justice Assistance assessments.
So, the UK government confirms involvement in Israel, it then insists its compliance within the law, and at the same time it denies access to the most basic data needed to assess those claims.
In insisting that even a flight count is too dangerous to release, the government reveals less about operational risk than about institutional reflex. Perhaps, in the end, it just doesn’t want awkward questions to be raised as to whether the UK – with its spy flights – enabled genocide.
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