The airline carrying munitions to Israel – finally confirmed this week by the Department of Transport to have travelled through Irish airspace on nine flights – flew a further 14 flights over Ireland with more than 33 tonnes of explosives on their way to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The Challenge Airlines flights took place from January 2023 to May 2024. The carriage of munitions over Ireland without ministerial permission is a criminal offence.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin this week said, “The Department of Transport has been in touch with the Belgian authorities,” in relation to the first block of munitions-carrying Challenge Airlines flights first reported by The Ditch.
The Ditch has asked the Department of Transport if it will add these 14 newly identified flights – which were verified using records released to The Ditch by the Belgian authorities yesterday evening – to its ongoing investigation.
Ninety tonnes of munitions through Irish airspace
In the past month The Ditch has reported that eight Challenge Airlines flights illegally carried 57 tonnes of munitions of war through Irish sovereign airspace from October 2023 to March 2024.
The reports were based on documents Antwerp-based NGO Vredesactie got from the Belgian authorities.
The Ditch last month submitted a request to the Belgian economy ministry – under EU Access to Information on the Environment laws – for records concerning explosives permits issued to Challenge Airlines from January 2023 to October 2023 and April 2024 to June 2024.
The Ditch has confirmed an extra 14 Challenge Airlines flights illegally carried munitions to Israel through Irish airspace.
These flights took place from January to October 2023 and in May 2024 and carried more than 33 tonnes of explosives from the United States to Israel.
Challenge Airlines in total illegally transported 90 tonnes (90,000 kilogrammes) of explosives to Israel, over Ireland, on 22 flights within a fifteen-month period.
All fourteen flights – each of which had a stopover in Liége airport – were carrying explosives used by the IDF, among them detonators, ammunition primer and tear gas.
Two flights overflying Ireland on 1 and 8 May 2024 – after Micheál Martin claimed in the Dáil that Irish airspace wasn’t being used to transport munitions to Israel – brought detonators, ammunition primer and tear gas from New York to Tel Aviv for the Israeli security forces.
A 27 January, 2023 flight carried more than 14 tonnes of explosives over Ireland, including 5,371 kilogrammes of practice grenades and 7,616 kilogrammes of tear gas-containing projectiles.
Yesterday The Ditch reported that Israel’s national airline had illegally transported Lockheed Martin munitions through Irish sovereign airspace to Tel Aviv for the past year.
The Department of Transport has been contacted for comment.
