UK police searching for pro-Palestinian activists over RAF jet damage
Police in the United Kingdom are searching for suspects and the military is reviewing its security procedures after pro-Palestinian activists broke into a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire and damaged two planes with red paint, officials said on Friday.
The group Palestine Action said two members entered RAF Brize Norton, some 110 kilometres west of London, on Wednesday and used electric scooters to approach the Voyager jets, which are used for air-to-air refuelling.
The duo sprayed red paint into the planes' turbine engines with repurposed fire extinguishers. They caused further damage with crowbars, according to the group, which released video footage appearing to show an individual approach a jet and spray paint into the engine.
The activists left the base without being detained, Palestine Action said.
The group said in a statement that "despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US/Israeli fighter jets."
The Ministry of Defence confirmed the incident, saying: "We strongly condemn this vandalism of Royal Air Force assets."
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the vandalism "disgraceful" in a post on X.
Thames Valley Police said in a statement that it had "received a report of people gaining access to RAF Brize Norton and causing criminal damage."
Officers were working with staff at the base and military police to arrest the perpetrators, the force said.
The government said two planes were being checked for damage and that the vandalism had not stopped any planned aircraft movements or operations.
"A full security review is underway at Brize Norton," Starmer's office said. "We are reviewing security across the whole defence estate."
Planes from RAF Brize Norton regularly fly to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, Britain's main air base for operations in the Middle East.
The UK has sent more Typhoon fighter jets and Voyager tankers to Cyprus since the Israel-Iran conflict started a week ago for what Starmer called "contingency support."
Iran has threatened to attack US, French and British bases in the region if those countries help Israel fend off Iranian strikes.
Despite recent efforts to boost European defence production, the bloc remains 'highly vulnerable' and heavily reliant on the United States—particularly for major, high-end defence equipment—according to a new analysis by the Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel.
Trade statistics show that the value of weapons imported to Europe increased from approximately $3.4 billion for the period 2019–2021 to $8.5 billion for 2022–2024 across the 27 member states, with the US leading this increase despite concerns over its capabilities.
'Europe has the industrial production capacities to increase production of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles,' said Guntramm Wolff, Bruegel's senior fellow, during the launch of the report Fit for war by 2030? on Friday morning.* 'What is more concerning is the more modern weapons systems, where we have limited capabilities,' he added.
Bruegel and Kiel Institute for the World Economy researchers have detected that the reliance on the US for certain defence and security domains is very high, including hypersonic missiles, next generation jets, AI integrated systems and intelligence services.
'There has been some increase in various systems—artillery in particular has grown substantially—but these increases are still relatively small compared to the overall demand,' Wolff said.
For example, the report notes that Europe held 1,627 main battle tanks in 2023, while projections suggest 2,359 to 2,920 will be needed in the coming years, depending on the scenario. As for air defence systems such as the Patriot and SAMP/T, stock levels in 2024 stood at 35 units—far below the 89 required.
'Major investments in research and development will be essential,' the authors advise EU policymakers and national governments, especially given Europe's lagging defence R&D compared to global competitors.
In 2023, Europe invested €13 billion in military R&D. By contrast, China invested €21 billion, while the US allocated a staggering $145 billion.
In March, the European Commission unveiled its rearmament initiative—now called Defence Readiness 2030—with a target of mobilising up to €800 billion to address the bloc's most critical defence shortfalls.
Meanwhile, NATO is expected to call on its 32 members to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2032—or potentially by 2035—a target Spain has already criticised as 'unreasonable'.
But simply increasing budgets won't solve the problem, the report warns.
'More military spending will not automatically and immediately translate into military capabilities, especially if the defence industrial base is already under strain,' the researchers argue. The real challenge, they stress, lies in converting funding into tangible capabilities through a coherent, forward-looking strategic and operational plan.
With the European defence market still highly fragmented, greater integration would improve cost-effectiveness. But alongside procurement reform, military planning must also be strengthened.
'This is really about rebuilding the ability to understand war through the lens of peer conflict—and that is just as much of a challenge as disbursing the money,' said Dr. Alexandr Burilkov, assistant director for research at the GLOBSEC GeoTech Center.
According to the researchers' estimates, even the proposed €800 billion may fall short—insufficient to cover the development of missile capabilities, procurement of tanks, artillery, and infantry fighting vehicles, modernisation of forces, and investment in air defence systems.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
AFP
2 hours ago
- AFP
Altered Trump video spreads amid Iran-Israel war
"We need to avoid getting involved in this conflict #trump #maga #israel #iran #middleeast #wwiii," says a June 15, 2025 post sharing the video on Instagram. The clip -- also shared to X, TikTok and YouTube -- claims to show Trump saying the United States should stay out of the conflict between the two arch enemies, which began when Israel targeted Iranian military bases and nuclear sites in a June 13 attack and has seen Iran respond with barrages of missiles and drones. "I think we should skip it," Trump appears to say in the video. "I don't know. I'm just not really feeling it. World War III folks, hard pass." Image Screenshot from Instagram taken June 20, 2025 Referencing nationwide protests against his agenda, Trump supposedly continued: "We've got enough going on stateside. We've got the 'No Kings' riots set to kick off this weekend. 'No Kings.' We like kings, actually, folks. We like one king in particular, quite frankly. The king of kings, our lord and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been working to draw elevated support from Trump, but the Republican US president said June 20 that Iran had a "maximum" of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could take a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier. He had spent weeks before the attack pursuing a diplomatic path towards a deal to replace the nuclear deal with Iran that he tore up in his first term in 2018. The video purporting to show him saying the United States "should skip it," meanwhile, is altered. Reverse image searches reveal the footage was lifted from a May 28, 2025 event -- more than two weeks prior to Israel's strikes on Iran (archived here). Former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, who was sworn in at the ceremony as the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, can be seen standing behind Trump throughout. The video and transcript show the president mentioned Israel's war on the Palestinian militant group Hamas and the US efforts to reach a deal with Iran, but he did not call for the United States to stay out of a conflict between the two Middle Eastern nations (archived here and here). He was asked at one point whether he warned Netanyahu against taking any action that could disrupt his talks with Iran, but he said he was pushing to follow the diplomatic path. The president made no mention of the "No Kings" protests. The manipulated video appears to lift footage from around the 18:36 mark of the May 28 footage, based on Trump's hand movements. In that moment, the president was talking about inflation. The voice cloning detection tool in the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify, found that the audio on the altered version is "very likely AI-generated." Some of the earliest posts sharing the clip included disclaimers saying it was a parody generated by artificial intelligence. AFP has debunked other misinformation about the Iran-Israel war here.
LeMonde
3 hours ago
- LeMonde
US judge orders release of pro-Palestinian Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday, June 20, to release Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who became a leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests. Khalil, a legal permanent US resident who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release on bail during a hearing on Friday, according to a court order seen by AFP. Since his March 8 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Khalil has become a symbol of President Donald Trump's campaign to stifle pro-Palestinian student activism against the Gaza war, in the name of curbing anti-Semitism. At the time a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, Khalil was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. Following his arrest, US authorities transferred Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from his home in New York to a detention center in Louisiana, pending deportation. His wife Noor Abdalla, a Michigan-born dentist, gave birth to their son while Khalil was in detention. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a law approved during the 1950s Red Scare that allows the United States to remove foreigners seen as adverse to US foreign policy. Rubio argues that US constitutional protections of free speech do not apply to foreigners and that he alone can make decisions without judicial review. Hundreds of students have seen their visas revoked, with some saying they were targeted for everything from writing opinion articles to minor arrest records. Farbiarz ruled last week that the government could not detain or deport Khalil based on Rubio's assertions that his presence on US soil poses a national security threat. The government has also alleged as grounds to detain and deport Khalil that there were inaccuracies in his application for permanent residency.
France 24
4 hours ago
- France 24
US judge orders release of pro-Palestinian protest leader
Khalil, a legal permanent US resident who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation. District Judge Michael Fabiarz ordered Khalil's release on bail during a hearing on Friday, multiple US media outlets said. Since his March 8 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Khalil has become a symbol of President Donald Trump's desire to stifle pro-Palestinian student activism against the Gaza war, in the name of curbing anti-Semitism. At the time a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, Khalil was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. Following his arrest, the US authorities transferred Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from his home in New York to a detention center in Louisiana, pending deportation. His wife Noor Abdalla, a Michigan-born dentist, gave birth to their son while Khalil was in detention. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a law approved during the 1950s Red Scare that allows the United States to remove foreigners seen as adverse to US foreign policy. Fabiarz ruled last week that the government could not detain or deport Khalil based on Rubio's assertions that his presence on US soil poses a national security threat.
