A paper trail linking thousands of shipments to Israel’s military and weapons industry has put a familiar passenger airline at the centre of a campaign to stop the supply of arms.
United Airlines transported components for fighter jets and armoured vehicles to Israel on routine passenger flights, an investigation into cargo records has found, exposing how civilian air travel has become part of the supply chain sustaining Israel’s military operations.
Between 24 July 2025 and 27 February 2026, researchers identified at least 2,761 shipments carried by United that contained explicitly military cargo, were destined for weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, or met both criteria. The distinction matters: the total includes consignments whose individual contents and ultimate use were not established. The findings are set out in a 17-page cargo investigation.
For Palestinian Youth Movement organiser Belal Elsiesy, the documents bring the machinery of war into a setting millions of people recognise: an ordinary passenger flight, with commercial cargo travelling in the hold.
“United doesn’t want you knowing,” he said. “They don’t want their passengers knowing. They don’t want the public knowing.”
“They don’t want their workers, their flight attendants, their pilots,” he continued. “They don’t want any of us to know about these. But there is a paper trail.”
That trail runs through air waybills, export records, shipment descriptions and delivery addresses. By examining the paperwork accompanying consignments, investigators reconstructed movements between American airports, Israeli military facilities and companies producing weapons and associated equipment.
“It’s through analysing these air waybills, these documents that we were able to find this out,” Elsiesy said.
“I encourage people to actually take the time and read the full report.”
The destination breakdown lists 2,070 shipments to Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries, 414 to Hatzor airbase, 135 to Nevatim airbase, 78 to Lockheed Martin Israel and 64 to Israel’s Ministry of Defence. Almost all left the United States through Newark, with domestic connections bringing some consignments from airports including Dallas–Fort Worth and Houston.
“This isn’t an abstract connection,” Elsiesy said.
“The parts that go to Elbit, these pieces of military cargo, the equipment, no matter how insignificant they seem, from the smaller parts like the nuts, washers and bolts that go into these systems to the tank parts, the F-35 parts — all of these make the war crimes in Gaza, in Iran, in Lebanon, they make it all possible.”
His argument is that maintaining a military’s ability to fight depends on a steady flow of parts, including items whose descriptions can appear mundane on a shipping document.
The research examined descriptions for a sample of 546 shipments between July and October 2025, classifying 131 as F-35 components and 28 as tank or armoured-vehicle parts. Its methodology acknowledges that some Elbit-bound goods could serve civilian aviation or systems intended for customers in other countries. The records do not identify every ultimate end-user. Report methodology and findings.
Among the military items identified were bomb-release units for F-35 fighter jets, equipment associated with helmet displays, and sighting systems for armoured vehicles.
Elsiesy singled out the release units because of their role in allowing aircraft to carry and drop heavy bombs. He contrasted their transport with the restrictions passengers encounter at US airport security checkpoints.
“You get harassed by TSA for having a few too many drops of water in your bottle,” he said. “But then you have the bomb-release units of an F-35 on the same flight as you.”
He also pointed to the equipment that helps pilots and tank crews find and engage targets, including at night.
Manufacturers’ descriptions illustrate the military purpose of these systems. Elbit describes its Modular Gunner Sight as enabling accurate engagement while a vehicle is moving, by day or night. Collins Aerospace describes the F-35 helmet display as combining flight information, targeting and night vision, with imagery projected onto the pilot’s visor. Elbit’s sight specifications, Collins Aerospace’s helmet specifications.
“Thinking about the connections to actual war crimes really is what makes it shocking,” Elsiesy said.
His argument is that responsibility extends along the chain that makes military operations possible, reaching the businesses that transport essential equipment as well as those that manufacture it.
The published material does not establish that live bombs or explosives travelled on the flights examined, or connect a particular consignment to a particular attack. The campaign’s allegation concerns the airline’s contribution to supplying weapons systems and military customers.
United declined to comment when approached by aviation publication Live and Let’s Fly. The airline publicly advertises government and defence cargo services, offering “commercial air pickup and delivery in times of peace and war”. Its own website also identifies it as a Civil Reserve Air Fleet partner. United’s reported response, United Cargo’s service description.
The disclosures arrive amid a separate confrontation over the Trump administration’s proposed $2.8 billion munitions sale to Israel. The planned package includes 40,000 bombs weighing 2,000lb each, divided equally between MK-84 and BLU-117 bombs. The purchase would use American military financing, placing the cost on US taxpayers. Reuters’ reporting on the proposed sale, The Washington Post’s account of the financing.
Asked about reports of the proposed sale, Elsiesy said: “I’m not surprised. I don’t think any of us should be.”
“For the past three years, in the face of this genocide, one of the biggest demands of the movement has been an arms embargo.”
On 16 September, Gregory Meeks, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced that he would withhold clearance for the sale. He cited the danger posed by such weapons in densely populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon and said the administration had failed to provide sufficient assurances about civilian protection and lawful use.
“I therefore will not clear this sale at this time,” he said. His objection does not, by itself, guarantee that the administration will abandon the transfer. Meeks’s statement, Reuters on the limits of his opposition.
For Elsiesy, the prospect of another major weapons package reinforces the need to organise around the companies and infrastructure that move military supplies.
“Appealing to the moral conscience of these people can only get us so far,” he said. “It’s important that we build an embargo from below.”
The United investigation forms part of the People’s Embargo for Palestine, a campaign seeking to turn research into pressure on transport companies, public authorities and institutions involved in supplying Israel.
“It’s important that we build our power collectively as the people,” Elsiesy said. “Nothing will change unless we force our politicians to change.”
Elsiesy wants the findings to reach airline workers, passengers and communities around the airports through which the cargo moves. He argues that public scrutiny, workplace organisation and local political pressure can challenge arrangements that otherwise remain buried in freight paperwork.
“United is this gigantic company, but what allows them to operate? Their workers,” he said.
“They don’t want their workers knowing. It’s important that we break this, that we expose it, that we talk about it, that we build and organise against it.”
He also challenged the use of airports and public infrastructure to sustain military supply routes.
“Our airports, which should be serving us, should be connecting us, but rather are used to facilitate genocide — we should reject this complicity,” he said.
“Trump isn’t going to block these weapons shipments,” he said. “We are.”
Sources and attribution: Belal Elsiesy’s interview, supplied transcript; The Role of United Airlines in Military Cargo Shipments to Israel, published on 9 September 2026 by the Palestinian Youth Movement, People’s Embargo for Palestine, Movement Research Unit and Democratic Socialists of America. Additional reporting and documentation are linked above. Interview quotations have been lightly edited to remove verbal fillers and repetitions and correct obvious transcription errors. Shipment figures are the investigators’ findings; the underlying consignments have not all been independently verified for this article.
