Photo: A protest in front of the Gastops factory in Ottawa, November 2024. Photo by Brent Patterson.
The Dublin-based organization Front Line Defenders (the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders) has documented the killing of 31 Palestinian human rights defenders in 2023 and 2024.
And speaking about the targeted airstrike on August 10 against Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif, United Nations Special Rapporteur Irene Khan told Democracy Now!: “There are some — anything between 26 to 30 journalists who have been targeted in this campaign of assassination [by the Israeli military].”
One of the journalists killed in a targeted airstrike was 25-year-old Palestinian freelance photographer Fatma Hassona. She was killed along with several members of her family on April 16, 2025. The Guardian reports: “The investigative group Forensic Architecture studied the missile strike and declared it a targeted strike aimed at Hassona for her work as a journalist and witness.” A documentary about her life – Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk – opens in UK and Irish cinemas on August 22.
Use of F-35s
But what is beginning to be documented implicates F-35s in the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The Danish daily newspaper Dagbladet Information has reported that on July 13, 2024, several Israeli bombs struck a humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi in Gaza and killed at least 19 people and wounded 60 more.
Their article adds: “After the attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant went to Nevatim Air Base in southern Israel – where the Danish-equipped F-35 fighter jets are based – to thank the pilots for their participation in the attack. The Israeli military has since confirmed in a written response to Information and Danwatch that the F-35 planes took part in the attack on Mawasi on July 13. It is the first time in the course of the war that Israel has confirmed the use of the F-35 in connection with a specific attack that has resulted in civilian casualties.”
And in May 2025, Lawyer Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, representing the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, told a British court that F-35s played a critical role on March 18, 2025, when Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip killed more than 400 Palestinians, including 183 children and 94 women.
UN Special Rapporteurs
On February 23, 2024, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders endorsed this statement that says: “Any transfer of weapons or ammunition to Israel that would be used in Gaza is likely to violate international humanitarian law and must cease immediately.”
Court cases
Along with weapons and ammunition, the components that make military systems are also increasingly coming under scrutiny.
Court cases about the legality of the export of components for F-35s have been heard in the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
In February 2024, the BBC reported: “A Dutch appeals court has ordered the government to block the delivery of parts for F-35 fighter aircraft to Israel over concerns they are being used to violate international law.” In June 2025, a Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) report documents that the Netherlands is still supporting the F-35 supply chain through the Rotterdam port more than a year after this court ruling.
Similar court challenges have been dismissed on technical or procedural grounds in Denmark (April 2025) and the United Kingdom (June 2025).
International law
Guardian columnist Owen Jones has also commented: “International law leaves no room for doubt. When the UK ratified the arms trade treaty in 2014, it accepted that it must not ‘authorise any transfer of conventional arms … if it has knowledge at the time of authorisation … [that] would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes’. It also accepted that this included ‘parts and components’ essential to the functioning of ‘combat aircraft’. [And yet British foreign minister David] Lammy’s government supplies Israel with components crucial for the functioning of F-35 jets, whose bombs indiscriminately destroy civilian infrastructure and shred the bodies of little children.”
The same obligations presumably could hold true for Canada, that ratified the Arms Trade Treaty in 2019, and to foreign affairs minister Anita Anand.
Gastops in Ottawa
In May 2025, an online campaign was also launched to stop the construction of a new Gastops factory in Ottawa.
That petition highlighted: “In March, Gastops quietly submitted a building application to the City of Ottawa for a new, state of the art facility to be built at 3700 Twin Falls Place, in Gloucester. …Gastops is the only manufacturer of the specific engine sensors that go into Lockheed Martin’s F-35 bomber jets… These warplanes would not be able to fly without the Gastops engine sensors.”
An apparently small, but vital component
The Breach has reported: “Gastops makes unique Oil Debris Monitor (ODM) ‘Metalscan’ sensors that are designed to detect engine wear and tear and ‘keep aircraft in the air’, resulting in ‘less downtime, more flight time’, according to the company.”
Images found on the Gastops website, a Gastops video on YouTube, as well as on eBay, suggest the component may be relatively small in size and that a version of it could weigh as little as 1.5000 kilograms (3 pounds).
More F-35s en route to Israel
While the construction schedule for the new factory has apparently not been publicly disclosed, it is possible that the existing Gastops factory in Ottawa is producing engine sensors for the imminent delivery of additional F-35s to Israel.
The Breach has noted: “Their manufacturing operates on a vulnerable ‘just-in-time supply chain,’ with parts intended to arrive as needed.”
The Jerusalem Post has reported: “The IDF announced on Sunday [March 16, 2025] that three F-35i aircraft have landed at Nevatim Air Force Base, purchased from US defense giant Lockheed Martin, which increases Israel’s quantity of F-35 aircraft to 42 out of 50, which are already fully purchased.”
That article then highlights: “The Jerusalem Post has learned that in around two more months [which would have meant May-June], three more aircraft will be delivered, with another three being delivered later in 2025 [presumably at some point in July-December] and the last two of the existing order in 2026.”
And it further reports: “In 2023, Israel, the US government, and Lockheed Martin signed a deal for 25 additional F-35s to eventually raise the number of aircraft to 75, which will mean a third squadron, and additional steps in that process took place in mid-2024. The first third squadron of F-35 deliveries will start in 2027.”
Supply chain
It is not entirely clear the process by which engine sensors manufactured in Ottawa are incorporated into F-35s bound for Israel.
The recent Arms Embargo Now campaign report Exposing Canadian Military Exports to Israel (July 29, 2025) notes: “Gastops supplies their sensors to Pratt & Whitney, who fit them into the F-35 engines, and then supply these engines to Lockheed Martin. Due to lack of transparency in the supply chain of military technologies, it is unknown if this fitting occurs in Canada or in the US.”
The Pratt & Whitney Canada Head Office and Main Manufacturing Facility is located in Longueuil, Quebec, approximately 215 kilometres east of Ottawa. The largest F-35 final assembly facility is in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) report Exposing UK Arms Exports to Israel (May 2025) notes that research by Declassified UK and The Ditch shows that small quantities of F-35 parts have been made by El Al Airlines as well as by FedEx and UPS. It is possible that the Gastops component is shipped in similar ways.
The urgent need for transparency
In the Ploughshares report Global Production of the Israeli F-35I Joint Strike Fighter (January 2025), author Kelsey Gallagher highlighted: “The urgent need for greater transparency and traceability in the transfer of advanced weapons components, thereby reinforcing national and international arms-control obligations with a focus on the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).”
We continue to follow this.
