Despite the warnings of UN experts to stop arms sales to Israel due to possible war crimes against civilians in Gaza, Serbia continued to export. With the last shipment in July of 7.3 million euros, the value of weapons or ammunition sold to Israel this year is 23.1 million euros, BIRN and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reveal in a joint investigation.
The leading state enterprise in the Republic of Serbia for the export of arms, Jugoimport-SDPR, exported weapons and/or ammunition to Israel worth 7.3 million euros in July, ignoring, among others, the appeals of 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, and into which BIRN had access, with the July shipment, SDPR exported goods worth a total of 23.1 million euros to Israel in 2024. This export is taking place during the Israeli military operation in Gaza during which more than 40 thousand Palestinians were killed and in which more than 90 thousand were wounded, according to the data of the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Israel has also been at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon for 11 months, which further increases the need for weapons.
The data on the shipment in July coincides with five flights of Israeli military aircraft from Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport to the Israeli air force base Nevatim, which were identified by BIRN and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, using publicly available data from websites that track aircraft flights, BIRN writes.
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. By far, the bases of the United States of America all over the world are in first place.
On August 15, Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called the situation in Gaza “unthinkable”.
“This unimaginable situation is largely due to the repeated failures of the Israel Defense Forces to adhere to the rules of war. “On average, around 130 people have been killed in Gaza every day for the past 10 months,” Turk said.
“The scale 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 before returning to the Nevatim base shortly after.
Research by BIRN and Haaretz identified three more 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 were unable 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.
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.
