Five years ago, Israeli warplanes screeched over the skies not of Gaza, but the green fields of England. This was exercise Cobra Warrior, a three-week training session for fighter jet pilots to simulate dog fights, airstrikes and aerial refueling.
For Israel’s air force, it was the first time their planes had participated in a military exercise in Britain. It came as relations between London and Tel Aviv were reaching new heights under then prime minister Boris Johnson.
Such was the enthusiasm that Israel sent seven F-15s – around 10% of its fleet – to take part in the exercise. The jets were from 106 Squadron, a frontline unit known as the ‘tip of the spear’.
The same squadron, according to several accounts, bombed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) headquarters in Tunisia in 1985, killing at least60 people. That attack was condemned by Margaret Thatcher, and the UNSecurity Council.
Yet by 2019 none of this seemed to matter. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn had been smeared for laying a wreath to the victims in Tunis and the Squadron who killed them was being welcomed by the Royal Air Force.
Some did dissent. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign said it was “deeply inappropriate” and “shameful”, accusing Johnson’s government of “complicity in the ongoing violent repression of the Palestinian people within a system of apartheid.”
Their warning would prove to be prescient.
Within a matter of years, 106 Squadron was embroiled in far more than apartheid. It’s been “providing CAS (Close Air Support) to ground forces” in Gaza “since the first day of the war” last October, according to a Facebookpost from Israel’s air force.
Its F-15s can be loaded with Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs weighing a tonne. Within a week of Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, JDAMs had wreaked havoc, killing 43 civilians in airstrikes documented by Amnesty International.
“Two families have been decimated in these strikes,” the rights group warned, although it was unable to identify exactly which squadron fired the weapons.
What is clear is that the ‘tip of the spear’ provided air cover in Rafah when the Israeli army rescued two hostages in February. A 106 squadron commander said they used “dozens of aircraft” to create a “ring of fire” needed for a “really successful” operation.
That “ring of fire” killed around 100 Palestinians, many of whom were displaced civilians, women and children. Survivors of the massacre recalledtheir homes being reduced to rubble.
They found their murdered siblings had been decapitated in the blasts, and had to carry their family’s remains in plastic bags. Whether the squadron practiced similar tactics during exercise Cobra Warrior is a matter for Britain’s military to clarify.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson would only say: “The UK shares defence relationships with democratic countries around the world in support of security and stability. As part of these relationships, we engage in joint exercises to share best practice in accordance with international law.
The exercise is known to have involved air-to-ground strikes and cooperation with an RAF Shadow R1. That’s the same surveillance plane that has been flying almost daily missions over Gaza, supposedly to help locate hostages.
Publicly available flight tracking data shows it was in the air over Gaza hours before and after the Rafah ‘rescue’ mission.
And it’s not just the destruction of Gaza that 106 Squadron has played a central role. Its F-15s were also involved in Israel’s strikes on Lebanon and Yemen this year.
A squadron member admitted in an interview in September that “every day a significant wave of attacks comes out of us in Lebanon”.
106 Squadron’s deputy commander told Israeli newspaper Ynet: “Last week, I was on a mission in South Lebanon. We took out a Hezbollah cell in one of the villages. Oh, and we also made it to Yemen”.
Around 4,000 Lebanese were killed during Israel’s attacks, many of them civilians, and a million people displaced. When 106 Squadron bombed Yemen’s Hudaydah port in July, it wrecked energy facilities, taking out dozens of oil storage tanks, two shipping cranes and a power plant.
Six Yemeni oil workers were killed and at least 80 others reportedly injured. Human Rights Watch described it as a possible war crime. They warned: “Yemenis are already enduring widespread hunger after a decade-long conflict. These attacks will only exacerbate their suffering.”
Yet this does not seem to have concerned the pilots. Between missions, they pass their time playing poker or PlayStation in the “villa”, a kibbutz-style house at the Squadron’s air base in Tel Nof.
It’s located south of Tel Aviv in the city of Rehovot, established in 1948 on ruins of the Palestinian village of Zarnuqa as Zionist militias ethnically cleansed its inhabitants. The base itself was the Royal Air Force’s Aqir base under the British mandate.
An article extolling the virtues of the 106 squadron described how it can reach Gaza from Tel Nof in just 5 minutes, ready to pummel targets in the enclave.
The airbase has also been frequently visited by senior Israeli figures. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited in April, as did then defence minister Yoav Gallant, before the latter returned in August, in an apparent appreciation of its fleets.
With both men now wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza, will the RAF think twice before it invites Israeli fighter pilots to train in England again?
Source: Declassified