Who arms Israel map – FAQ

These Q&A relate to the interactive map of UK companies supplying arms to Israel. The companies shown include:

1. Companies involved in the F-35 combat aircraft programme, for which Israel is a customer, and that are registered for a special “Open General” export licence relating to the F-35. These companies are shown in red on the map.
2. Companies that have recently received ordinary export licences for arms sales to Israel. These companies are shown in blue on the map.
3. Companies that fall into both the above categories. These companies are shown with red and blue striped dots on the map.

The F-35

1. What is the F-35 and why is it important?
2. What types of components does the UK make for the F-35?
3. How are UK components for the F-35 exported to Israel?
4. What is the value of F-35 components exported from the UK to Israel?
5. What is an Open General Export Licence?
6. What does the one for the F-35 allow? How many companies are registered for it?
7. Do all exports of F-35 components go through the OGEL?

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Other export licences to Israel

1. What other export licences have been issued for selling arms to Israel? How much are they worth?
2. What types of equipment do these licences cover?
3. What information do we have about the companies with export licences to Israel? What is shown on the map?
4. Which companies had the most export licence applications to Israel?

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The F-35 combat aircraft

1) What is the F-35 and why is it so important?

The F-35 is an advanced stealth combat aircraft, produced mainly by Lockheed Martin in the US, but with important components made by numerous other partner countries. The UK manufactures 15% of the value of every F-35. About 20 countries use or have ordered the F-35, including the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Germany.

Israel has 39 F-35s, and has ordered 36 more. It is one of three types of aircraft Israel is using to bomb Gaza and Lebanon, along with the US-made F-15s and F-16s. The F-35 has been used to drop 2000lb bombs on Gaza, which have been responsible for some of the worst atrocities during the war. In one attack on 14 July, as revealed by Danish NGO Danwatch, an F-35 dropped three 2000lb bombs on a displaced people’s camp in al-Mawasi, killing 90 people. In most cases, we don’t know what aircraft are used in which attacks.

2) What types of components does the UK make for the F-35?

The UK arms industry makes some very important parts of the aircraft. BAE Systems makes the rear fuselage of every F-35 at Samlesbury in Lancashire, and the “Active Interceptor System” in Kent. Leonardo make the targeting lasers for the plane’s Electro-Optical Targeting System. L3Harris make munitions release mechanisms in Brighton, enabling the plane to fire bombs and missiles. This includes ones specifically designed to modify Israel’s F-35s to use Israeli-made munitions as well as US-made ones.

These are critical components, some of which might be very hard to replace, especially at short notice. Moreover, combat aircraft need a constant supply of spare parts to keep flying, especially during war time. Without continuing supply of spare parts from the UK as well as other producers, Israel would not be able to keep using the F-35s to bomb Gaza.

3) How are UK components for the F-35 exported to Israel?

There are three main ways:

a) Components for newly-produced aircraft are exported initially to the USA to be used to produce the planes that are then exported to Israel. (Or, in some cases, components may be supplied to other partner countries to produce other subsystems, which are then sent to the USA).

b) Some components have been exported directly to Israel – these may be either to modify Israel’s F-35s to their own specifications (as with L3Harris), or as spare parts. The Open General Export Licence (OGEL) has been used 34 times since it was issued in 2016 to export unknown quantities of equipment directly to Israel. Since the government’s partial suspension of licences on 2 September, this direct supply route is no longer allowed.

c) Spare parts are sent to global supply hubs in a number of countries, from where they may be sent on to any of the countries using the F-35, including Israel.

4) What is the value of F-35 components exported from the UK to Israel?

Israel has so far (up to the end of 2023) received 39 F-35 aircraft from the US. At present, the unit cost of each plane is around $80 million, although it was higher in earlier years of production.

Therefore, for a conservative estimate of the value of UK components in Israel’s F-35s, we can take 15% of $80 million, that is $12 million per plane, times 39, which gives $468 million – roughly £370m at today’s prices.

In addition, an unknown quantity of spare parts will have been exported, directly or indirectly, to Israel from the UK. This amount will be far higher during war time, when the planes are used more intensely. At a Congressional hearing in December 2023, a spokesperson said that Lockheed Martin and the US Department of Defense had been working at “breakneck speed” to rush extra spare parts to Israel.

5) What is an Open General Export Licence? 

An Open General Export Licence (OGEL) is different from other types of export licences, such as Single or Open Individual Export Licences (SIELs and OIELs). For the latter, individual companies apply for a licence, stating what equipment they want to export, and to whom. The government then evaluates the application and decides whether to issue a licence or not. SIELs have a single destination country, are valid for 2 years, and allow for a fixed quantity and value of deliveries. OIELs can have multiple destination countries, are valid for 3 or 5 years, and allow for unlimited deliveries.

With OGELs, the government itself publishes the licence, stating what types of equipment may be exported where, and for what purposes. Companies are then invited to register for the OGEL, and may then use it freely, subject to certain conditions and required record-keeping. This is the biggest difference from other licences, where only one company applies for, receives, and can use the licence; there may be a large number of companies registered for an OGEL.

Very often, an OGEL allows a very broad range of categories of equipment, and/or a very large number of recipient countries, so long as the export is for the purpose covered by the OGEL. Sometimes the approved recipients of an OGEL are all countries except a list of ‘problem’ countries.

A full list of OGELs can be found here.

 6) What does the OGEL for the F-35 allow? How many companies are registered for it?

The F-35 OGEL allows the export of a very wide range of equipment, software and technology, so long as it is for the F-35 – including the development, production, maintenance, trials and testing, or use of the aircraft. It can’t be used to export complete aircraft. Authorised recipient countries include all the partner nations, export customers (including Israel), and some other countries that are involved in the production of the aircraft but are not themselves customer countries. Equipment exported to one country using the licence can subsequently be re-exported to any of the other partner or customer countries.

Since the government’s partial suspension of licences to Israel, it is no longer permitted to use the OGEL to export equipment to Israel for Israel’s own use, but it is permitted to send equipment to other countries that might then be re-exported to Israel, or to send equipment to Israel so long as it is for eventual re-export to other countries. (Despite not being a ‘partner nation’, Israeli companies do produce components and systems for the F-35 generally, as well as for their own use, so these may include UK components).

At the time of the government’s response to an FOI requesting this information, in November 2023, there were 79 companies registered for the F-35 OGEL, which are depicted on the map.¹

7) Do all exports of F-35 components go through the OGEL?

No. Registering for an OGEL involves a certain amount of bureaucracy, as do the conditions for using the OGEL on an ongoing basis. Companies that only occasionally export F-35 components might prefer to apply for a Single or Open Individual Export Licence (SIEL or OIEL) instead. We know, from court proceedings, that when the government suspended some export licences to Israel, but exempted the F-35, there were five licences (including the OGEL) relating to the F-35 which they allowed to remain in force, despite assessing that there was a clear risk that the equipment exported might be used in serious violations of International Humanitarian Law. Thus, we know that not all F-35 related exports go through the OGEL.

Other export licences to Israel

 1) What other export licences have been issued for selling arms to Israel? How much are they worth?

Between 2019-2023 (the most recent five years of data), the government issued the following licences for sending military equipment to Israel:

– 561 Single Individual Export Licences (SIELs), worth a total of £142.3 million. These licences allow the company holding them to export a fixed quantity and value of specified equipment to a single destination country. They are valid for 2 years.

– 22 Open Individual Export Licences (OIELs). These licences allow the company holding them to export an unlimited quantity and value of specified equipment to one or more destination countries listed on the licence application. They are valid for either 3 or 5 years.

– 8 Single or Open Individual Trade Control Licences (SITCLs or OITCLs). Often called “brokerage” licences, these do not authorise the direct export of military equipment from the UK; rather, they allow a UK-based or UK citizen licence holder to sell or arrange the sale of arms from one or more source countries outside the UK to one or more destination countries. While SITCLs cover only a limited quantity of equipment, their value is not disclosed. OITCLs, like OIELs, allow for unlimited deliveries. Holding a SITCL or OITCL from the UK government does not exempt the arms broker from the export control regulations of the source country/ies.

Most of these licences can be seen on CAAT’s UK arms export licences browser.²

NB: Some of these licences are no longer extant. Other licences may have been suspended as a result of the government’s decision on 2 September 2024 to suspend 29 export licences to Israel for use in Gaza. We do not know which licences were suspended, but they include items such as components for combat aircraft, helicopters, unmanned air vehicles, and targeting equipment.

2) What types of equipment do these licences cover?

The breakdown of the single licences by value includes:

• ML14: Military training equipment – £42m
• ML10: Aircraft and components – £31m
• ML5: Radars, target acquisition, fire control equipment & countermeasures – £20m
• ML11: Other electronic equipment – £12m
• ML4: Grenades, bombs, missiles & components & countermeasures – £12m
• ML6: Tanks, armoured vehicles & components – £12m
• ML19: Directed energy weapons – £5.7m
• Other: £7.1m

Between both single and open licences, the most frequent types of equipment licenced were:

• Components for military radars: 58
• Components for military aircraft head-up/down displays: 58
• Components for electronic warfare equipment: 31
• Components for targeting equipment: 30
• Components for military training aircraft: 24
• Components for combat aircraft: 19
• Components for submarines: 19
• Components for military combat vehicles: 18
• Components for military support aircraft: 18
• General military aircraft components: 18

3) What information do we have about the companies with export licences to Israel? What is shown on the map?

Information about the companies holding export licences is not regularly published by the government. However, we received a detailed response in September 2024 to a FOI request asking about the companies that had applied for export licences to Israel from October 2021 to May 2024.³

For those licences where a decision was taken (on whether to issue the licence or not) by the end of 2023, details of the licence can be found on the CAAT export licences browser. Where a decision was taken later than this, or had not been taken by May 2024, we only have limited information. However, all companies that had applied for export licences to Israel during this period are displayed on the map, and the figures shown in the sidebar include the number of licences applied for in this period, as well as those we know were issued.

The information in the FOI response did not cover all export licences issued to Israel between October 2021 and December 2023 (we do not yet have the detailed information for 2024). That is, there are some licences that we know were issued, and which can be seen on the CAAT export licences browser, for which the name of the company holding the licence was not disclosed. We will be following up with the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), to whom the initial FOI request was made, to ask about this.

4) Which companies had the most export licence applications to Israel?

Between October 2021 and May 2024, these are the companies with most export licence applications for military goods to Israel:

1. Teledyne UK Ltd.: 28 applications for Single Individual Export Licences (SIELs), of which 26 licences were issued, with 2 still pending as of 31 May 2024. Teledyne are also registered for the F-35 OGEL (see above).
2. Phoenix Optical Technologies Ltd.: 15 SIEL applications, 12 licences issued, 3 still pending
3. Gooch & Housego (UK) Ltd.: 15 SIEL applications, 9 issued, 6 pending
4. Instro Precision Ltd.: 12 SIEL applications, of which 10 issued, 2 pending. 1 Open Individual Export Licence (OIEL) also issued.
5. Qioptiq Ltd.: 11 SIEL applications, 11 licences issued. Also registered for the F-35 OGEL.
6. Martin-Baker Aircraft Company Ltd.: 7 SIEL applications, 7 licences issued. 2 OIELs also issued. Also registered for the F-35 OGEL.
7. Leonardo UK Ltd.: 7 SIELs applied for, 5 issued, 2 pending. 1 OIEL also issued. Also registered for the F-35 OGEL.
8. UAV Tactical Systems Ltd.: 6 SIEL applications, all 6 issued. 1 OIEL also issued.
9. Stop-Choc Ltd.: 6 SIEL applications, all issued.
10. UTM Ltd.: 5 SIEL applications, all issued.