DECLASSIFIED UK—Israel’s incendiary attack on Iran on 13 June has led to a flurry of stories mentioning RAF Akrotiri as a potential target for Iranian retaliation given its status as the UK base for what the BBC admitted is a “rapid deployment force available for contingencies in the Middle East”.
The defacing of two military planes at RAF Brize Norton by members of Palestine Action – that has subsequently led to the unprecedented decision by the Home Secretary to proscribe the group – led to many mainstream news outlets briefly citing the activists’ claim that the RAF was involved in what most stories referred to as “military operations in the Middle East”.
Unusually, the BBC’s account did at least mention the activists’ claim that Britain was continuing to “fly spy planes over Gaza”.
However, neither these stories nor indeed any of the ones since the flights started operating in December 2023 have actually investigated these claims.
