After a months-long investigation, Channel 4 News’s FactCheck team has obtained a dossier of exclusive new files on UK arms export licences to Israel.
The files give us major new insights into UK companies’ arms sales to the Israeli government during its war on Gaza, which has killed at least 75,000 Palestinians.
Our revelations raise questions about the former Conservative government’s policy on arms sales, as well as the current Labour government’s stated policy on the ongoing export of military aircraft parts.
We’re going to take you through the files step by step.
The basics – what is an export licence?
When a UK company wants to sell arms abroad, it needs to apply to the UK government for an arms export licence – this document is like a permission slip.
Public data on these licences is limited. It doesn’t tell us whether the licences have actually been used to export weapons, or who in a given country would be using them.
But through repeated Freedom of Information requests to the Department for Business and Trade, FactCheck has now obtained several line-by-line snapshots of active arms export licences for Israel. The snapshots are from July 2024, July 2025 and July 2026.
Our new data captures which licences were active, not just for the country of Israel, but specifically for use by the Israeli government – which we understand means the Israeli military. And it also includes “usage notes”, which tell us whether a given licence has been used to export goods during a specific period of time.
The Conservative government
On 7 October 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas – which is proscribed as a terror group by the UK – left 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage. Israel then began its biggest ever bombardment of Gaza.
By January 2024, at least 26,000 Palestinians had already been killed in Israeli attacks.
It was then that the International Court of Justice ruled there was a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza. Soon after, in April 2024, hundreds of UK lawyers, including former Supreme Court justices, issued a legal opinion saying that the UK must urgently suspend arms sales to Israel.
The then-Conservative UK government did not suspend arms sales.
Our first snapshot of new data reveals that, as the Conservatives were leaving office in July 2024, there were still 67 military export licenses left active where the Israeli government was an end user.
Those licences permitted the sale of a wide range of items – including parts for:
- combat aircraft
- military helicopters
- combat vehicles
- equipment for the launch and control of munitions
- military communications equipment
- military navigation equipment
- other military aircraft
- training ammunition, and more.
The total value of the active licences was around £164m. That represents an upper limit on what could have been exported under single issue licences. But the data also includes other types of open licence, which allow an unlimited value of exports.
We can reveal for the first time that, by July 2024, at least 25 of those 67 active licences had actually been used to send military parts to the Israeli government, since October 2023.
The licences that were used by UK companies to export goods during the war included licences for parts for:
- targeting equipment
- military aero engines
- combat aircraft
- military aircraft
- trainer aircraft
- parts for surface-to-air missiles.
- Targeting equipment refers to equipment which allows you to find, and aim weapons at, a target on the ground.
One of the used licences was a high value £25m licence for parts and software for “military aero engines”, which could include engines for military aircraft or drones. The data does not reveal the exact value that was actually exported. Another was an £88m licence for parts of “combat aircraft”.
The combined value of the used licences was around £150m. Again, this represents an upper limit on what would have been exported, and the actual value of the items sent was likely lower.
Two of the licences had been exhausted, meaning their full value was exported. These included one worth around £66,000 for trainer aircraft parts, and another worth around £109,000 for combat aircraft parts. It’s not clear whether the full value was exported during the war on Gaza.
We spoke to Professor Janina Dill, Dame Louise Richardson Chair in Global Security at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. She told FactCheck that the UK “should have used [its] leverage” as a major arms exporter to Israel and “while there is a great deal of contestation around the question whether Israel is commiting genocide in Gaza”, it was “hardly contestable in 2024” that it was “committing grave breaches and war crimes”.
The Conservative Party did not respond to our repeated requests for comment about this story.
Israel has repeatedly denied the accusations that it has committed genocide or breaches of international law in Gaza.
The Labour government
In July 2024, Keir Starmer’s Labour government entered power.
And by September 2024, the new administration said it wanted to suspend around 30 arms export licences for Israel, citing concerns over breaches of international law.
It said it was suspending exports that could be used by the Israeli military in Gaza. And it explicitly mentioned targeting equipment, and parts for military aircraft, including helicopters, fighter jets and drones.
But there were two big carve outs in the policy.
Firstly, Labour said it would continue to allow the sale of military training items, because they wouldn’t be used directly in conflict.
And secondly, the Labour government said it wouldn’t try to stop all exports of parts for the F-35 — a type of fighter jet used by Israel and NATO allies — because the exports went to a global pool that benefited multiple countries.
The Labour government refused to give us the full list of licences it suspended – even under Freedom of Information laws. It cited commercial sensitivity and confidentiality. It said if we figured out the names of the companies holding the suspended licences, we might, “potentially incorrectly”, link those firms to potential war crimes.
But by looking at the snapshots which the government did release, and comparing the active licences before and after Labour’s suspensions, we can corroborate some of what Labour announced about its suspensions.
For example, targeting equipment did disappear from later lists of active export licences, after Labour’s suspensions. As did other licences covering parts for military helicopters and combat vehicles. So that data fits with what Labour said it would do.
But many export permissions remained active under the Labour government.
By July 2025, 55 arms export licences remained active where the Israeli government was an end user. And we can reveal that at least 10 of those had already been used to export military goods under the Labour government.
Some of the licences that remained active for the Israeli government under Labour included parts for:
- combat aircraft
- military aero-engines
- military aircraft ground equipment
- military aircraft head-up/down displays
- military aircraft communications equipment
- surface-to-air missiles
- trainer aircraft
- training ammunition, and more.
And we can confirm that some licences to export parts for surface-to-air missiles, combat aircraft, trainer aircraft, and military aircraft displays had all been used since September 2024.
We understand that the surface-to-air missiles are likely for use in Israel’s defence systems.
While the number of active licences had decreased by 2025, the overall value of the licences had actually increased – from £164m under the Conservatives, to around £498m under Labour.
Most of this extra value seems to come from large licences for “combat aircraft” parts, which we understand are part of that F-35 global pool which the government said it couldn’t back out of. Just five such licences for combat aircraft parts account for £454m of the remaining value.
To be clear, these licence values don’t tell us how much was exported, just the maximum that could be exported. But remember, this doesn’t capture the value of the open licences, which allow exports of unlimited value.
As of July 2025, the combined value of the licences used under the Labour government came to £2.3m.
“Trainer aircraft” parts
Our new data raises questions over parts the Labour government is allowing to be exported for the Israeli military’s trainer aircraft.
In a November 2025 letter to the sub committee on export controls, the then-Minister Chris Bryant said that 33 of the remaining 55 licences for the Israeli government were for “trainer aircraft”.
We’ve identified that only 16 licences in that data were described as parts for trainer aircraft. A further 5 licences are open licences which appear to cover trainer aircraft parts as well as other kinds of combat or military aircraft parts.
And a number of the remaining licences are described explicitly as parts for “combat aircraft” and “military aero engines”, with no mention of training. We understand these licences were included in the “trainer aircraft” category in Mr Bryant’s letter.
We understand that this is because some of the parts have been manufactured or designed for use in combat aircraft or drones – but the UK government has only given permission for them to be exported for trainer aircraft.
But the fact that the individual parts may have potential combat utility may raise questions over how Mr Bryant presented this data to the committee. In the then-Minister’s November 2025 letter, an annex had described the parts as: “Components for trainer aircraft, which have no combat utility.”
Speaking on the export of these kinds of parts, Professor Janina Dill told us: “I think when it comes to the larger duties of prevention and protection that flow from the Genocide Convention and the Geneva Conventions, we have to contend with the fungibility of weapons and the awareness that the government must have that other states are unwilling to suspend their own licences. And so the United States and Germany continue to supply Israel with weapons. And so that if the UK government then sends weapons to Israel for training, that other weapons are more available to be used in Gaza and the West Bank in violation of international law.”
“Fungibility” refers to the idea that when parts are supplied for one purpose, they may free up other parts to be used in combat.
The latest data for 2026
Our snapshot of data from July 2026 also includes 55 active licences, with a combined value of about £492m.
The very large combat aircraft licences, which we understand to be part of the F-35 global pool, still made up the bulk of this value.
There is no evidence in our data of the five very large combat aircraft licences being used yet, though the government was clear that the data may not capture all licence usage.
One or two new licences appeared in the 2026 snapshot, including for military guidance and navigation equipment. Some licences had disappeared by 2026, including those for training ammunition. Usage notes are incomplete for the 2026 snapshot.
Government response
The Labour government said it disputed our characterisation of its export licensing system, saying we only had a partial view of the data.
It said: “Our suspension of licences that might be used by the IDF in Gaza remains fully in place, and we have suspended or refused over 80 export licences on this basis.
“All existing licences have been rigorously assessed to ensure they can neither be used by the IDF in Gaza, nor materially contribute to the Occupation. The remaining licences for Israel are largely made up of training items, submarine parts and missile defence items.”
