RAF Shadow surveillance aircraft being flown over Gaza to help locate hostages

Royal Air Force aircraft including the Shadow R1 will be conducting surveillance flights over Gaza to help find the remaining hostages that were taken by Hamas.

Ministers said the safety of British nationals was the "utmost priority" as they announced a range of unarmed aircraft would be used by the RAF for reconnaissance flights.

Any information gathered on the potential whereabouts of captives will be shared with Israel.

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The Shadow R1 is a modified Beechcraft King Air 350CER that is equipped with high-definition electro-optical and electronic sensors to gather data,

Any gathered data can either be analysed on board the R1 during a mission or transmitted elsewhere via satellite.

Being a non-combat aircraft, the Shadow does not have weapons, but it does have a DAS (Defensive Aids System) which uses sensors to provide warnings about incoming threats like a missile.

Fighting resumed on Friday following a week-long truce between Israel and the Palestinian military group despite more than 130 hostages remaining in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

In the weeks after Hamas’s bloody 7 October raids on Israel, Downing Street said at least 12 British nationals had been killed in the attack and a further five were still missing.

Some of those are believed to have been kidnapped, but the UK Government has not confirmed how many might be being held by Hamas.

The MOD said ministers had been working with allies across the Middle East to "secure the release of hostages, including British nationals, who have been kidnapped".

"The safety of British nationals is our utmost priority," it added.

"In support of the ongoing hostage rescue activity, the UK Ministry of Defence will conduct surveillance flights over the eastern Mediterranean, including operating in air space over Israel and Gaza.

"Surveillance aircraft will be unarmed, do not have a combat role and will be tasked solely to locate hostages.

"Only information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant authorities responsible for hostage rescue."