We need to talk about Operation Esther
In the fog of war, cloaked beneath euphemism and disinformation, a covert British operation known as Operation Esther has quietly facilitated Israel’s sustained assault on Gaza. While politicians peddle platitudes about humanitarian concern, and the press tiptoes around the charred remains of Palestinian lives, the UK government has provided critical military, logistical, and intelligence support to the Israeli state.
As Netanyahu tries to deflect what is happening in Gaza by trying to pull the west into a war with Iran, we must not forget what our politician have done and are still doing.
Far from a passive bystander, Britain is deeply implicated. Lets take a scalpel to the moral pretences, dissecting the UK's role in what amounts to the slow-motion destruction of a people, and ask, in blunt terms, how long the British public will allow it.
Operation Esther is not an officially acknowledged term in Parliament. It’s a label leaked through investigative journalism, particularly via Declassified UK, pointing to an interlocking strategy of military cooperation with Israel, and the simultaneous shutting down of dissent. Confusingly, This is not to be confused with Project Esther, developed by the US conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, to shut down dissent in the US and label criticism of Israel as terrorism, or Operation Esther: the extraction of Yemenite Jews.
In the UK The initiative encompasses surveillance and reconnaissance flights, logistical transport of war materiel, intelligence sharing, and possible special forces deployment. It is a multi-pronged approach that cannot be described as anything other than operational complicity in war crimes. The name itself carries biblical overtones: Esther, the queen who saved her people through calculated manipulation and violence. Whether deliberate or ironic, the codename is grotesquely apt.
Central to Operation Esther is RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s airbase in Cyprus, now transformed into a hub for military activity directed at Gaza. Between December 2023 and May 2025, UK aircraft reportedly flew over 200 surveillance missions in the region. These were not humanitarian overflights. They are ISTAR missions: intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance. In short, Britain acted as the eyes and ears of the Israeli military machine. There is every reason to believe that intelligence gathered from these flights was used to refine Israeli targeting, which has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, the destruction of schools, hospitals, and UN refugee shelters.
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In tandem, British military aircraft made dozens of flights between Akrotiri and Tel Aviv, ferrying cargo, officially 'classified' but widely assumed to include military equipment and ammunition. These missions coincided with periods of intensified Israeli bombardment, including well-documented mass casualty events such as the bombing of Al-Mawasi in July 2024, where an F-35 'Tentbuster' strike killed at least 90 civilians in a designated 'safe zone'. These warplanes, crucially, use components made in the UK. Despite a brief and symbolic suspension of new export licences in late 2024, UK firms such as BAE Systems continue to produce critical F-35 parts that end up in the Israeli fleet.
What this represents is a laundering of violence through corporate and state partnerships. British companies sell the tools. The Ministry of Defence arranges the deliveries. RAF pilots fly the kit to its end users. Then, when those components are used in what human rights lawyers now call possible genocidal acts, politicians in Westminster feign ignorance and outrage. It is the architecture of plausible deniability, a system designed to keep the blood off British hands while enabling massacre from the air.
The complicity does not end with equipment. There is growing evidence that British special forces have been deployed in or near the conflict zone under the guise of 'hostage rescue'. While the government insists these troops are not engaged in combat, reports suggest that SAS and other elite units may be advising Israeli forces or operating in a grey zone of indirect warfare. This follows a pattern established in Iraq and Afghanistan: Britain’s imperial reflex, cloaked in humanitarian rhetoric, executed through covert operations shielded from democratic oversight.
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Further back in the shadows lies Project HEZUK, a secretive UK–Israel defence agreement dating from 2019, outlining protocols for joint operations, technology transfers, and strategic cooperation, including hypersonic missile development. This deal, largely unreported by mainstream outlets, laid the legal and operational groundwork for Britain’s support during the Gaza offensive. HEZUK reflects not a one-off decision, but a structural commitment to Israel’s military doctrine: one that now openly includes the doctrine of disproportionate force and collective punishment.
Declassified: HEZUK - Britain's secret defence plan with israel
That last phrase 'collective punishment' has become impossible to ignore. More than 50,000 Palestinians are dead. Thousands more remain missing beneath the rubble. Entire hospitals have been destroyed, electricity and water cut off, and food supplies weaponised. UN experts, including Special Rapporteurs, have used the term 'genocide' in relation to Israel’s actions. The International Court of Justice has found a plausible case for genocide. Against this backdrop, the UK’s material and tactical support is not just morally repugnant, it is potentially criminal under international law.
Over 600 UK lawyers, including Lord Neuberger (former Supreme Court President), Philippe Sands KC, and Crispin Blunt MP, have signed formal legal opinions warning that UK ministers could face prosecution under the Rome Statute. The supply of weapons, intelligence, or operational aid in the knowledge that such crimes are being committed makes Britain liable. That the government continues these activities in the face of such warnings is an act of contempt, not just for international law, but for public conscience. And yet Westminster persists in its game of smoke and mirrors.
When challenged in Parliament, ministers issue evasive statements about the legality of arms exports, asserting that all licenses are 'kept under review'. Labour, meanwhile, walks a coward’s tightrope: issuing calls for a ceasefire while quietly supporting the infrastructure of war.
Keir Starmer, whose early comments defending Israel’s right to cut off electricity to Gaza were widely and justly condemned, now presides over a party riven with internal dissent. Dozens of Labour councillors and activists have resigned, accusing the leadership of moral bankruptcy. Polling shows widespread public disapproval of arms sales to Israel, particularly among younger voters and ethnic minorities.
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This is not just about foreign policy. It is about the state of British democracy itself. Operation Esther reveals the extent to which unelected bureaucrats, private arms firms, and intelligence officials drive decision-making behind the scenes. The British state is not neutral, it is wired for war and up to its nuts in it. The revolving door between BAE Systems and Whitehall, the manipulation of public broadcasters like the BBC, and the criminalisation of protest reveal a system that fears scrutiny: the arrest of holocaust survivors, the criminalisation of peaceful protest, the silencing of dissent, the smears, the gaslighting that supporting a human cause is tantamount to supporting HAMAS and being an antisemite. The list goes on. All policy. All designed to hide the complicity and shut down scrutiny. Editors at leading newspapers, including The Guardian, have admitted internal pressure to 'balance' coverage of Gaza: code for soft-pedalling Israel’s crimes and erasing Palestinian voices. The state, first with the tories under Sunak and now under Labour have done everything within their power to discredit the justifiable moral outrage at their complicity and cowardice. We saw this yesterday with the proscription of Palestine Aciton.
Finally, the media must be reformed. Public broadcasters should be shielded from government interference and required to report transparently on Britain’s foreign policy. Investigative journalism should be protected, not suppressed. The British public deserve to know what is being done in their name.
What would a truly ethical British response look like? For one, a complete halt to arms exports to Israel, including dual-use components. But more than that, it would require dismantling the operational infrastructure: grounding surveillance flights, cancelling intelligence sharing, withdrawing special forces, and ending all defence cooperation agreements. Humanitarian aid to Gaza must be increased and administered transparently through local NGOs and UN agencies, not as a PR exercise for companies that profit from war. Accountability must follow: ministers and officials involved in Operation Esther should face legal consequences, not cushy post-political careers on the boards of defence contractors.
Civil society has responded with fury. Since October 2023, millions have taken to the streets across the UK in weekly demonstrations demanding a ceasefire and an end to British complicity. Trade unions including the TUC and NASUWT have condemned the war. Palestine Action has mounted direct actions against Elbit Systems and other arms suppliers, occupying offices, smashing windows, and drawing the ire of corporate media. This is grassroots anti-imperialism: direct, unsanitised, and effective. But the state, first with the tories under Sunak and now under Labour have done everything within their power to discredit the dissenting voices.
WSWS: UK issues D-Notices to suppress reports of special forces operations in Gaza
Operation Esther is a stain on the moral conscience of Britain. It is the quiet war: the one that flies beneath headlines, tucked behind D-notices and redacted documents. But its consequences are loud and bloody. The screams of children under rubble, the drone of surveillance jets over Gaza, the booming PR of military contractors cashing in: whether we like it or not this is Britain’s war, too. From the industrial estates of Lancashire to the runways of Cyprus, the apparatus of death is made, funded, and operated by us.
We must not content itself with hand-wringing or calls for restraint. We must demand the complete deconstruction of the imperial war machine. Because what’s happening in Gaza is not just a tragedy, it is a crime. And we are in the getaway car.
Israel has never been 'defending itself': it merely has seized an opportunity out of a crisis to create a war of annihilation, to ethnic cleanse, to starve, to kill children on an industrial scale, and to achieve it's blood-soaked dream of Eretz Israel.
So whenever a politician says that 'Israel has the right to defend itself' which they seem to be rolling out on a loop, please remember this for the cowardly self serving platitude it is, because what they are really saying is 'we are criminally complicit in this and we think you are to dumb to join the dots'.
And finally, this. Operation Esther is a deliberate involvement in one of the most shameful episodes in history. If and when Netanyahu and the other Israelis indicted by the ICC get their day in the dock at the Hague that they've worked so hard for, there are leading politicians in both the Tory and Labour parties, that should be standing there with them.
The world has gone mad. If you enjoyed reading this, please feel free to look at the rest of the blogs on www.TetleysTLDR.com. They're free to view, there's no paywall, they aren't monetised and I won't ask you to buy me a coffee. Also please free to share anything you find of interest, we only get the message out if people are aware of it. Just a leftie, standing in front of another leftie, asking to be read. All the best, Tetley
