Is the British Military Helping Israel Bomb Gaza?
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sysAdmin
- . December 25, 2023
- . Update: December 25, 2023 11:23 am
Since November, the number of British armed forces in Cyrus and the Eastern Mediterranean has surged by 1,000 amid the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. UK’s Minister of State for the Armed Forces James Heappey said the bolstered presence of British troops in Cyprus is to support emergency plans and humanitarian efforts in the region.
British media reports say the troops’ primary focus is the Gaza Strip. Sources say over 30 UK military transport flights have flown from the Cyrus base to Tel Aviv since the bombing of Gaza began. The UK government also gave the go ahead to conduct surveillance flights over Israel and Gaza, and provide intelligence to Tel Aviv as part of efforts to rescue Israeli hostages held in Gaza Strip.
The US and British militaries are key allies of Israel and have supported its bombing of Gaza.
British Troops in Lebanon and Egypt
According to Declassified UK, the British Defense minister said Britain sent extra troops to Egypt, Israel and Lebanon. “I have withheld specific numbers for these countries for operational security reasons. The UK military personnel were said to be deployed to support contingency planning and UK humanitarian aid efforts.”
Hundreds of elite UK troops are reportedly training in Lebanon to rescue Britons trapped in the Middle East warzone. Patrick Sanders, UK Chief of General Staff, told British MPs in the House of Commons defense committee that there is a prospect if the conflict does expand of a non-combatant extraction operation.
“We are posturing ourselves for that. We are also exploiting the network we have, so, for example, we have our special operations forces, the Rangers in Lebanon. They have built up a very close relationship with Lebanese armed forces. That provides an insight and influence on Lebanese decision-making and seeing things from the other side of the northern border, which clearly concerns Israel.”
Sanders added that British forces are unlikely to be drawn into combat or conflict, and are looking to avert that.
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British Troops in West Bank
The UK, like the United States, is a key ally of Israel. It is running a project, called the ‘Capability, Accountability, Sustainability and Inclusivity Program’, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to develop more capable Palestinian security forces to prevent the potential overspill of violence into Israel. However, that was broken by Hamas on October 7.
Britain’s project, as per a report, enabled Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces to learn skills required to deliver and oversee delivery of security services and facilitated their capability to develop, manage and deliver training for security sector personnel. It promoted effective coordination between PA security forces and the local community.
