The UK’s military will conduct surveillance flights over Gaza to help locate hostages held by Hamas since its October 7 attack on Israel, Britain’s defence ministry confirmed at the weekend.

According to AFP, the UK has said at least 12 British nationals were killed on October 7 and that a further five are still missing. But it has not confirmed how many are being held by Hamas.

London did not reveal when its military surveillance flights over the territory would start but stressed they would be unarmed and focused only on hostage recovery efforts.

“In support of the ongoing hostage rescue activity, the UK Ministry of Defence will conduct surveillance flights over the Eastern Mediterranean, including operating in air space over Israel and Gaza,” it said in a statement.

“Surveillance aircraft will be unarmed, do not have a combat role, and will be tasked solely to locate hostages,” the ministry added. “Only information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant authorities responsible for hostage rescue,” it said.

UK government minister Victoria Atkins told the BBC that the aircraft to be utilised were “unarmed and unmanned drones”.