Leaked Records Show Australian F-35 Parts Now Flying to Israel on United Airlines Passenger Jets

Leaked shipping records obtained by Declassified Australia show that sensitive F-35 fighter jet parts leaving Sydney for Israel are now traveling on United Airlines passenger jets through the United States, after two years of running through Bangkok on Thai Airways.

The pivot appears to follow Declassified Australia's October reporting, which first exposed the Sydney-to-Bangkok-to-Israel pipeline and forced senior Australian officials into a string of shifting denials.

From Denial to Damage Control

When the Bangkok route was first exposed, Australian ministers initially said the country exported no weapons to Israel at all. That position collapsed, and officials later claimed exports went only to a "U.S. global hub." Then the story shifted again: only "non-lethal" parts were involved.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the Senate, in response to questions from Greens Senator David Shoebridge, that Australia's contribution to the "global F-35 supply chain" consisted of components that are "non-lethal in nature."

That claim is difficult to square with the shipment record. Declassified Australia's leaked documents show that by November 2025, at least 71 shipments of F-35 parts had gone from Australia to Israel since October 2023. Among them: a gasket for the F-35's GAU-22/A cannon, a four-barrel 25mm weapon that fires 3,300 rounds a minute and has been used in strikes on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. A cannon component is not, by any ordinary definition, non-lethal.

The New Route

The first shipment on the new pathway left Sydney on Dec. 10, 2025. Shipping records describe the item only as a "Clamp," but label it for the "JSF" (Joint Strike Fighter) and list its origin as "2314 Williamtown," the postcode of RAAF Base Williamtown, home to Australia's fleet of 72 F-35A jets and to a BAE Systems sustainment depot that stores and repairs F-35 components.

According to the leaked records, the package traveled on United Airlines flight UA870 from Sydney to San Francisco, then UA2248 to Newark, then UA84 on to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, arriving the morning of Dec. 12, 2025, roughly two days after departure.

That short transit window is the crux of an analytical question raised by Consortium News reporter Peter Cronau: two days is not enough time for the part to be processed, repaired or stored at a U.S. F-35 parts hub. It moved through American airports essentially as connecting cargo on commercial flights.

Cronau's reporting characterizes this as a potential form of "origin laundering," a routing choice that lets Australian officials describe exports as passing through the United States rather than going directly from Australia to Israel, even though the part never left its original consignment. That interpretation is Consortium News' analysis of the routing pattern; it is not confirmed by any Australian government document, and no evidence has surfaced that U.S. authorities processed or reviewed the cargo during transit.

Why It Matters

The pattern documented by Declassified Australia, if accurate, shows a U.S. ally quietly supplying lethal weapons components into Israel's war effort while its government publicly denied doing so, then narrowed its denials only as leaked evidence made them untenable. It also shows how commercial passenger aircraft, not military transports, can be used to move sensitive weapons components across three countries in two days, largely invisible to public oversight.

The records center on Australia, but the F-35 program itself is run through a U.S.-controlled global supply chain, meaning Washington's oversight of where its own weapons technology ends up, and how allied governments account for it, is directly implicated.