The UK will send unarmed surveillance flights to the Middle East to help find remaining hostages held by the Hamas terrorist group, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Saturday.
Some hostages taken by Hamas were released during a week-long truce in exchange for prisoners, but more than 130 people remain in captivity as fighting resumed on Friday morning.
The MoD said it would conduct flights to help locate the hostages.
“Since the terrorist attacks against Israel of 7 October 2023, the UK government has been working with partners across the region to secure the release of hostages, including British nationals, who have been kidnapped. The safety of British nationals is our utmost priority,” the MoD said in a statement.
“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,” the statement reads.
MoD officials said a range of unarmed aircraft would be used for the reconnaissance flights, including Shadow R1s which are used for intelligence gathering by the Royal Air Force.
Information on the potential whereabouts of captives will be shared with Israel.
More than 240 hostages were taken on Oct. 7 when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel.
Israel has said the terrorists killed more than 1,200 people during the raid, most of whom were civilians. Some of the bodies, including those of children and babies, were found to have been burnt, raped, and decapitated.
On Oct. 24, the Foreign Office confirmed that at least 12 British nationals had been killed in the Israel-Hamas war while five were missing, but the government hasn’t confirmed how many may have been among the hostages.
Some 110 hostages have been released so far, including 86 Israeli citizens and 23 Thais and one Filipino. Some of the Israelis are dual nationals, including the 9-year-old Irish-Israeli girl Emily Hand.
Nearby Shifa hospital in Gaza City the Israeli military located the bodies of two Israeli hostages. Since then, Israel has notified a few families that their relatives in captivity have died.
According to military spokesperson Daniel Hagari, as of Friday, 136 hostages remain in Gaza, including 119 men and 17 women and children.
Roughly 10 of the hostages are 75 and older, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Friday.
The vast majority have Israeli citizenship, while 11 are foreign nationals, including eight from Thailand, one from Nepal and Tanzania each, and one French-Mexican.
Fighting in the Middle East has resumed on Friday morning, with the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reporting that at least 200 Palestinians have been killed since the violence resumed, taking the death toll within the territory to beyond 15,200.
There are fears of mounting civilian casualties after Israel dropped leaflets warning residents to leave five more areas and neighborhoods around Khan Younis and Rafah. At the outset of Israel’s ground invasion most civilians were told to leave the north of the enclave.
Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, on Saturday reiterated his call for a “further pause or further cessation of hostilities” so further work can be carried out to release hostages and send aid to the besieged Palestinians.
Speaking to the BBC during his trip to Dubai for the Cop28 climate summit, he urged both sides, while the fighting is continuing, to attempt to limit the impact on civilians.
Former prime minister Liz Truss urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to “give our full support to the Israeli government” in the fight against Hamas.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the Conservative MP said there should be “no ifs, no buts” for Britain’s backing for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his administration.
Israeli ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely told Sky News on Sunday, that Hamas terrorists are “the ones who started firing on Israeli cities and towns on Friday,” as the truce came to an end.
“It is Hamas that failed this pause and the reason is that they are still holding 15 women, two children, one of them is a 10-month-old baby,” she said.
Ms. Hotovely also blamed Hamas for civilian casualties in Gaza.
“The only reason there are civilian casualties in this war is because Hamas is using them as human shields,” she said. “They don’t care about their own people, while Israel does care about civilian casualties.”
“They’re (Hamas) the cause of everything.”
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said Hamas had the power to stop the war “today.”
Speaking to the “Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme” on Sky News, the minister said the government has been “very much advocating for those [humanitarian] pauses to continue.”
Asked whether the UK and the United States could be starting to “run out of patience” with the way Israel is conducting the war, Ms. Atkins said: “We stand absolutely steadfast with Israel, but we have always said that this must happen within international law.
“We were very supportive of the humanitarian pauses. And we very much hope that Hamas will get back around the table and agree to more of these pauses and release more hostages. They could end this tomorrow—today, even.”
