Britain is reported to have flown hundreds of reconnaissance missions over Gaza in the past year to gather intelligence for Israel, which the Ministry of Defense insists is solely to help locate hostages held by Hamas.

Of the 1,600 surveillance flights over Gaza in 2023, the UK accounted for almost half of them (47 per cent), more than Israel (20 per cent) and the US (33 per cent), according to open source analysis of the data Al Jazeera.

Such missions could also help Britain understand what is happening on the ground in war-torn Gaza, a defense expert has suggested, while the Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed evidence of potential war crimes collected by British spy planes could be handed over to the International Criminal Court.

The MoD said no such request has been made.

Justin Crump, a former British army officer who runs risk intelligence firm Sibylline, said Britain has a strategic priority to locate Emily Damarinthe only British hostage still in Gaza.

“I think this is about our own interest, which is to get the hostages out (of Gaza), and probably the British government wants to know to some extent what is happening on the ground,” he said in.

Britain confirmed in December that Shadow R1s, a manned aircraft used for intelligence gathering by the Royal Air Force (RAF), would conduct unarmed surveillance flights over the Middle East, including over Gaza and Israeli airspace, to search for potential hostage sites used by Hamas. Any information about the potential whereabouts of detainees will be shared with the Israelis, officials said.

In response to this week’s reports, the MoD insisted that Britain “is not a participant in the conflict between Israel and Hamas”.

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The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, announced in May that he has applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes.

He also sought warrants against former Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh – both of whom have been killed – as well as Hamas’ top military commander, Mohammed Deif. Israel claimed he died in a strike in July but this has not been confirmed by Hamas.

An MoD spokesman said: “The UK is not a participant in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Our mandate is narrowly defined to focus on securing only the release of hostages, including British citizens, with the RAF routinely conducting unarmed flights since December 2023 for this sole purpose.

“In principle, we only provide intelligence to our allies where we are confident it will be used in accordance with international humanitarian law, and in this case only information about hostage rescue is being sent to the Israeli authorities.

“In line with our international commitments, we would consider any formal request from the International Criminal Court to provide information on war crimes investigations.”