Leading state enterprise for arms export, Jugoimport-SDPR, exported weapons and/or ammunition to Israel worth 7.3 million euros, ignoring, among others, appeals by UN experts to stop arms sales to that country due to possible war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
According to export data from the portal that collects business data of state institutions, in which BIRN had insight, with the July shipment, SDPR exported goods worth a total of 2024 million euros to Israel in 23.1. This export is taking place during an Israeli military operation in Gaza that has killed more than 40.000 Palestinians and wounded over 90.000, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Israel has also been at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon for 11 months, which further increases the need for weapons.
Data on the shipment in July matches five flights of Israeli military aircraft from Belgrade's Nikola Tesla Airport to Israel's Nevatim Air Force Base, which were identified by BIRN and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, using publicly available data from flight tracking websites.
In a previous investigation, BIRN and Haaretz identified six flights – in February, March and May – that also matched the export data.
At least 15 flights from December 2023 to today were made by Israeli military aircraft or aircraft known to transport weapons to Israel. They took off from Belgrade or Niš, and their final destination was the Nevatim Air Force Base, located not far from the city of Bersheva in southeastern Israel. According to statistics collected by Haaretz over 10 months, Serbia is at the top of the list of countries from which Israeli military planes fly. Undoubtedly, the bases of the United States of America are in the first place around the world.
On August 15, Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called the situation in Gaza "unthinkable".
"This unthinkable situation is due in large part to the Israeli Defense Forces' repeated failures to adhere to the rules of war." An average of around 130 people have been killed every day in Gaza during the last 10 months," said Turk.
"The extent of Israeli military destruction of homes, hospitals, schools and places of worship is deeply shocking," he pointed out.
Concerns about war crimes
Five flights in July took place in two days. On July 21, an Israeli transport plane flew twice in a row from Belgrade to the Nevatim Air Base. The next day, three different Israeli Lockheed C-130 aircraft - registration numbers 545, 663, 667 - visited the Nikola Tesla Airport, only to return to the Nevatim air base soon after.
BIRN and Haaretz research identified three other flights in August – an Air Force Boeing 707, registration number 272, flew from Nis to Nevati on August 1; two more flights took place on August 20, this time from Belgrade, again the same Boeing 707, as well as a Lockheed C-130, registration number 420. However, journalists failed to confirm the connection of these flights with the official export of arms or ammunition.
All of the flights that coincide with the SDPR's arms exports this year came after the International Court of Justice on January 26 ordered Israel to prevent its military forces from committing or inciting genocide against Palestinians, in response to a genocide lawsuit by submitted by South Africa.
Since then, the situation has drastically worsened. On April 5 of this year, the UN Human Rights Council supported the call to "stop the sale and supply of weapons, ammunition and other military equipment to Israel" in order to "stop further violations of international humanitarian law and violations of human rights."
On May 20, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Court of Justice in The Hague approved an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Most recently, on June 20, UN experts again called on states and companies to halt arms and ammunition shipments to Israel, arguing that they could "represent serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, and risk state complicity in international crimes, potentially including genocide".
Even after this appeal, Serbia continued to export weapons to Israel, as can be seen from the July shipment worth 7.3 million euros.
Read the entire text on the website BIRN.
