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On August 8, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that Germany would freeze the shipment of weapons to Israel that could be used in Gaza.
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However, in an exclusive report for the Diasporist, Yossi Bartal reveals that in the weeks since hundreds of FedEx shipments originating in the US and likely containing parts for F-35 fighter jets have passed through the Cologne/Bonn Airport en route to the Nevatim Airbase in Israel. Internal documents, seen by the Diasporist and corroborated by information found on FedEx’s website, indicates that several shipments have arrived in Cologne this week.
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These deliveries almost certainly violate the Genocide Convention, which Germany is party to. However, as Bartal demonstrates, German authorities have not taken accountability for the shipments nor have they moved to stop them. FedEx also declined to comment on the contents of these deliveries and the potential violation to their own human rights policy.
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The Diasporist published this story with the hope that transparency can open a pathway toward accountability and change. Investigations like these are the result of time and careful work, and are only possible with the support of our readers. If you can, please consider making a gift to the Diasporist. Your contribution helps ensure that we can produce more investigations on stories that matter.
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IT IS USUALLY EARLY EVENING when the plane from Memphis, Tennessee, lands at Cologne Bonn Airport, having traveled over 7,500 kilometers to the banks of the Rhine. On board these FedEx cargo flights, which cross the Atlantic several times a week, are not just exports headed to Germany. According to internal documents seen by the Diasporist, these packages contain goods sent from production sites of F-35 fighter jets, with shipping forms listing their final destination as Israel’s Nevatim Airbase in the Negev desert. These shipments have continued even after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced a freeze on most weapons deliveries to Israel last month.
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Nevatim, constructed in the early 1980s to the east of Beer Sheva, is one of Israel’s most important military airfields and is home to Israel’s F-35 fleet. Since 2023, Nevatim has been a major launchpad for the frequent deadly assaults on the Gaza Strip — including the current bombing raids against the densely populated Gaza City.
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According to the documents, obtained by the Irish news website The Ditch and corroborated by the Diasporist with information found on FedEx’s website, in the second week of September alone, 30 such shipments arrived at Cologne Bonn Airport. Most of the shipments originated in Fort Worth, Texas, where Lockheed Martin, the United States’ largest defense manufacturer, operates a central production plant for the F-35 fighter jet; the rest came from other locations where Lockheed Martin operates factories or warehouses. Some packages weigh less than a kilo, others significantly more. The precise contents remain unclear; they could contain units belonging to the electronic warfare system, arming panels, or infrared sensors. After all, the F-35 fighter jet, which costs up to $120 million per aircraft, is built from a staggering number of individual components.
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These shipments travel from Memphis, home to the United States’ busiest cargo airport as well as the corporate headquarters of FedEx, to Germany aboard FedEx-operated aircraft. Since 2010, the courier and logistics company has used Cologne Bonn Airport as a central transit hub for shipments to Central and Eastern Europe as well as Israel. In Cologne, the shipments bound for the military base are unloaded onto German soil where they remain for several hours — sometimes days or even weeks — before being reloaded onto another FedEx-operated flight. This second cargo plane departs Cologne daily in the late morning, headed to Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv. From there, they make their way to their final destination, the Nevatim Airbase.
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