With US Global Hawk drones to fly from Gloucestershire, US-UK collaborations are set to increase
The US military appears to have significantly increased the frequency of its reconnaissance drone missions over Occupied Palestine and neighbouring countries, according to flight tracking information identified by Drone Wars. The flights point to intensified US intelligence interests in the region, though the question of their precise purpose – whether general military intelligence, or more targeted surveillance – remains unclear.
The United States maintains an air base at Sigonella Airport in Southern Italy, from which it flies Global Hawk, MQ-4C Triton, and Reaper drones over Europe and the Middle East. While Reaper drones appear only sporadically in publicly-available flight radar registers, data shows that Global Hawks stationed at Sigonella flew missions across the Mediterranean at least twenty times through September, October and early November 2024, regularly crossing into the airspace over Gaza, the West Bank, and Jordan. On other occasions, flights spent hours circling off the coast of Israel, or, in the case of a Triton naval surveillance drone, flew northwards over Lebanon and Libya. Available data suggests that this marks a significant increase, with only one such deployment of a Global Hawk from Sigonella identifiable across June and July. As war and genocide in the region has escalated, expanding to devastating consequence into Lebanon and Syria, this uptick demonstrates an increased dependence on drone capabilities for US military intelligence.
The Global Hawk drone was developed by Northrop Grumman in the 1990s to maximise aerial surveillance capacity for the US military. With its advanced sensors and extensive operational range, the drone can remain airborne for over 30 hours, covering vast areas without the risk posed to crewed aircraft in territories deemed hostile. The drone’s high-resolution imaging systems and radar communications enable it to provide real-time data that informs military strategy, but which leaves communities subject to its missions under relentless aerial surveillance.
In Palestine, surveillance is already inescapable. Long prior to the onset of the current war, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have been consistently subjected to round-the-clock observation, tracking and monitoring through extensive infrastructures of surveillance, including ubiquitous facial recognition technology. Israeli quadcopter drones, many of which are also fitted with deadly attack capabilities, hover constantly. Palestinians report the psychological harm wrought by this permanent monitoring, which threatens to enact more death at any moment.
The surveillance missions undertaken by US drones should not be construed as somehow innocuous here. Coverage by Al-Jazeera demonstrates that American and European reconnaissance flights from bases on the continent form an integral tenet of the intelligence frameworks Israel uses to conduct its military operations in Gaza, the West Bank, and now Lebanon and Syria. Intelligence-sharing protocols have assisted Israel’s offensive, particularly as its own capacities have been weakened by war. As Al-Jazeera has reported, Israel itself flew only 20% of recorded reconnaissance flights in the region in the year from October 2023, while UK and US air forces were responsible for 47 and 33% of flights respectively, with manned RAF flights from the UK’s military base in Cyprus taking place regularly. It is important to note that many more Israeli flights may have taken place with transponders disabled, avoiding detectability, and undermining an accurate assessment of these figures. Still, the data displays an intense and undeniable complicity that extends beyond the provision of weapons, into the practical knowledge that makes genocide possible.
While US reconnaissance missions in the region are not exclusively conducted with Global Hawk drones, their use here nevertheless carries worrying implications. News that Global Hawks will soon operate from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire has prompted significant opposition from campaigners and peace groups.
With Fairford set to be a hub for long-range US reconnaissance missions, the presence of Global Hawk drones over Gaza points to an even greater role for the UK in facilitating military intelligence-gathering to American strategic ends. Without public consultation, the UK looks set to further shore up an already ubiquitous, far-reaching and highly powerful US surveillance regime, with little concern for the communities it will affect – both at home and abroad.
Watch out for our forthcoming online webinar on plans to fly US drones from RAF Fairford
which will be followed by a protest at the base itself.