A joint investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Haaretz has identified six Israeli military flights from Belgrade to Beersheba this year that coincided with Serbian arms exports to Israel worth 15.7 million euros, arms that risk being used in violating international humanitarian law in Gaza, reported BIRN.

Shortly after 2 p.m. on February 5, a planespotter was filming from a field next to Belgrade airport when he spotted what he described as a “rare” aircraft coming in to land.

The aircraft enthusiast posted the video to his YouTube channel, identifying the plane as a Boeing 707-300. “I had the pleasure to record this magnificent classic bird today at Belgrade Airport!” he wrote in English.

With the serial number 272, the plane belongs to the Israeli military, reported BIRN.

As the plane was sitting on the tarmac of Belgrade airport, Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, took to X, formerly Twitter, to say that some 100,000 people had been killed, injured or were missing in the war in Gaza, and that “80 percent of the population has been displaced most several times”.

According to BIRN, within two hours of Lazzarini’s post, open-source flight-tracking websites showed the Boeing heading towards Nevatim air base, just outside the city of Beersheba in south-east Israel.

Information obtained by BIRN from a portal that collates Serbian business data shows that in February, Serbia’s main state-owned arms trader, Yugoimport-SDPR, exported weapons worth 510,000 euros to Israel.

A joint investigation by BIRN and Haaretz found that the February 5 flight was one of six coinciding with Serbian arms sales to Israel since October 2023, when the militant group Hamas killed 1,175 people, according to statistics compiled by Haaretz, and took 252 hostages in an unprecedented attack on Israel. At least 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military response in Gaza, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

On February 26, three weeks after the planespotter filmed the first arrival of the Boeing 707-300 in Belgrade, Vucic spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Posting on Instagram afterwards, Vucic said they had discussed “further advancement of bilateral relations”. Netanyahu seemed more excited, describing Vucic as “a true friend of Israel”.

“I expressed my gratitude for his unwavering support, both in word and deed,” the Israeli leader wrote on X.

It was Day 143 of Israel’s assault on Gaza, in which many of those killed were women and children.

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