France Approved 35 New Military Equipment Shipments to Israel Since May, Investigation Finds

Thirty-five shipments of military equipment left France for Israel between May and September this year, according to a joint investigation by the Palestinian Youth Movement and the French collective Urgence Palestine, whose findings were seen by Middle East Eye ahead of publication next week.

The equipment includes cooling systems for tanks and missile launchers, helmet visors for helicopter and fighter-jet pilots, connectors, electronic components, and surveillance systems. The report states plainly where it was headed.

"All were destined for Elbit Systems subsidiaries."

Elbit Systems is one of Israel's largest arms manufacturers. The researchers trace the equipment back to French companies operating across five regions, including the defence conglomerate Thales, which the report says produced control panels used to remotely operate weapons systems.

The new findings build on an April investigation by the same organizations, which documented more than 525 shipments of military-use equipment from France to Israel between October 2023 and March 2026, including 117 flights of F-35 fighter-jet components departing Paris's Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. In the latest tranche, 33 of the 35 shipments passed through CDG, and 32 were carried by Israel's national airline, El Al. Researchers also identified four new French suppliers not named in the earlier report.

The findings were released Thursday at the launch of a month of coordinated protests against French arms sales to Israel, organized by a coalition that includes trade unions, BDS France, Stop Arming Israel, and the Association France Palestine Solidarite.

French-Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri, who was held for years in Israeli prisons, spoke at the launch and drew a direct line to President Emmanuel Macron's recent United Nations remarks, in which Macron called the situation in Gaza a "spectacle that shames us all."

Hammouri said Macron is not ashamed of having allowed hundreds of shipments of military components destined for Israeli factories to pass through over two years, and said that despite prior reporting, union mobilization and parliamentary pressure, the transfers continue.

The French government disputes that any of this amounts to arming Israel's offensive operations. Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin told parliament two days before the report's release that France supplies no offensive weapons to Israel, saying that when the government authorizes exports intended to defend Israeli territory and population, it ensures the equipment is not used against civilians.

Lawyer Thomas Nayla, who worked on the investigation using open-source data and customs databases, rejects that framing. He told Middle East Eye that components such as a tank cooling system or a helicopter pilot's visor cannot reasonably be called defensive, and said they are necessarily built into offensive weapons systems. Nayla said he reached one of the identified French suppliers by phone, and that the company confirmed its sales to Israel.

French military exports require government licensing before shipment. Investigative journalists and NGOs have repeatedly documented continued deliveries of electronic components, spare parts, and munitions-related equipment to Israel since 2023, and MPs have criticized the government for a lack of transparency over how those licenses are granted and tracked.