In the first half of 2025, Serbia exported to Israel ammunition worth around 55,5 million euros, more than during the entire previous year, when export reached a record 47,9 million euros. Among the buyers of the ammunition is a powerful Israeli company, which UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese labeled in her report as a "profiteer of the ongoing genocide" in Gaza, BIRN and Haaretz reveal.
On June 6, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Aleksandar Vučić surprisingly boasted that Serbia is the only country in Europe that sells ammunition to Israel, writes BIRN.
However, a few weeks later, on the morning of June 23, when asked by a journalist whether Serbia had chosen a side in the Israeli-Iranian conflict by exporting ammunition to Israel, the president said that the country had stopped the source of weapons and ammunition.
"Now we are not exporting anything. Now we have stopped everything and there must be special and special decisions, if something is going to work," said Vučić.
Nevertheless, on that same day, just a few hours after Vučić announced the moratorium on exports, a famous guest - an Israeli Boeing 747 cargo plane - landed at Nikola Tesla Airport.
The next day, at around 11:32 a.m., the plane took off for Israel's Nevatim air base, according to Flightradar24.
When asked about the plane later that day, Vučić replied: "It doesn't occur to me to say what took off and what landed."
An important military ally of Israel
In the last two years, the authorities have proven to be an important military ally of Israel.
In the first six months of this year alone, Serbia exported ammunition worth around 55,5 million euros to Israel, according to customs data to which BIRN had access. That's more than the total value of ammunition/arms exports to Israel for the whole of last year, which was a record 47,9 million euros, when both state-owned and private companies are taken into account.
The export dates from the first half of 2025 coincide with 16 Israeli flights from Belgrade to the Nevatim Air Base, which journalists have identified through several websites that track air flights live.
In addition to the state-owned company Jugoimport SDPR, five more Serbian private companies exported ammunition/weapons to Israel during the last two years, the weekly Radar previously reported.
BIRN/Haretz reveals that two of those five companies - Edepro and Romax Trade doo - exported ammunition this year to two well-known Israeli security companies that have the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) among their clients.
One of the two firms, IMI Systems, is owned by Elbit Systems, one of Israel's largest arms manufacturers. In a report by the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, Francesca Albanese, published on June 30, Elbit Systems was mentioned among the companies for which "the current genocide has become a lucrative business."
"Top Secret" data
Serbia has avoided releasing any official data on arms and ammunition exports to Israel, refusing requests for access to information of public importance filed by BIRN in March 2024 and July 30, 2025, stating that the requested information was "strictly confidential."
Mirko Dautović, a lecturer of international relations at Webster University in Tashkent, tells BIRN that supplying Israel with ammunition, despite international condemnation of war crimes and the suffering of Palestinians, is not just a question of money.
"Israel is ruled by Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a politician of the same breed as Orban and Vučić. Autocrats by nature, populists who build their politics on hatred and who plan to achieve their lifelong rule by taking over institutions," Dautovič told BIRN.
He points out that it is an "international alliance of politicians who, under the guise of nationalism, are working on their own lifelong rule under which corruption is rampant".
"They are loyal to each other because they use each other," he added, alluding to Serbia buying high-tech weapons from Israel, as well as spy programs that BIRN and Amnesty International found to have been used against activists and journalists, including those from BIRN itself.
Full text on this topic read on BIRN portal
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