Could ADR’s Latest Shipment From France Help Israel Target Gaza?

Freddie Ponton
21st Century Wire

France says its components cannot enter systems used in Israeli operations in Gaza. Yet French-made aircraft parts were scheduled to leave Charles de Gaulle airport on November 12 for the electro-optics subsidiary of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Their manufacturer, ADR, advertises technology used to “observe, communicate, attack or self-protect”.

According to L’Humanité, the three-kilogram consignment contains components manufactured by ADR at its plant in Thomery, Seine-et-Marne, and was scheduled to leave for Tel Aviv aboard an El Al flight at 14:45 on November 12. The newspaper identifies the final customer as Elbit Systems Electro-Optics, known as Elop, in Rehovot, Israel

IMAGE: ADR’s premises in Thomery, France, where the precision bearing manufacturer behind the shipment to Elbit is based (Source: HelloWork)

ADR itself names attack among its technology’s uses. “Our specific solutions are adapted to each environment and used to observe, communicate, attack or self-protect,” its defence brochure states. These are components designed not just for observation or protection, but also for systems that carry out combat missions. ADR explicitly identifies attack among its technology’s applications, yet the intended use of the components in this shipment remains undisclosed.

France, however, has promised to keep its components out of Israeli operations in Gaza, where civilians, including women and children, continue to lose their lives. In an answer to Parliament published on September 11, 2025, the Foreign Ministry said France ensured that components exported to Israel “cannot be incorporated into systems used in ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories”.

How ADR parts help weapons find their targets

Most of ADR’s business serves defence and security. Its high-precision bearings and electromechanical assemblies provide the stability and accurate rotation required by electro-optical systems. The company also makes bearings for infrared missile seekers, the guidance assemblies that detect and follow targets.

In an April 2026 article, ADR explains how thin-section bearings integrated into optronic pods keep images stable despite vibration. The company links these pods to long-range observation and high-precision targeting on helicopters, aircraft and drones.

IMAGE: An optronic pod illustrating ADR’s account of how its bearings stabilise images and support high precision targeting from helicopters, aircraft and drones (Source: ADR)

Elbit’s DCoMPASS airborne system illustrates how those capabilities come together. It combines daylight and thermal cameras with automatic target tracking, precise positioning for fire control and laser designation for guided munitions. The November 12 consignment is described only as “aircraft parts”. ADR declined to answer L’Humanité’s questions about the shipment and its final use.

IMAGE: Elbit’s DCoMPASS electro optical turret combines cameras target tracking and laser designation for guided munitions The intended system for ADR’s November shipment remains undisclosed (Source: Elbit Systems)

ADR’s deliveries to Elop predate the November parcel by years. An investigation by People’s Embargo for Palestine and Urgence Palestine records shipments from 2023 into January 2026: aircraft parts, mechanical and electronic equipment—and, in December 2024, a consignment explicitly described as ball bearings.

Intercepting communications can serve the targeting chain

French shipments also reach Elbit’s electronic-warfare business. On November 4, L’Humanité reported a planned consignment of aircraft parts manufactured by Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse. The recipient, according to Urgence Palestine, was Elbit Systems EW & SIGINT–Elisra, its electronic-warfare and signals-intelligence division. Departure from Charles de Gaulle was scheduled for November 5.

Elbit markets Elisra’s SKYFIX and SKYJAM systems for communications interception, location and jamming. SKYJAM can operate independently or alongside other electronic-warfare systems and can be mounted on airborne platforms. The company also advertises it as an “ideal solution for forward battlefield areas”. These functions differ from electro-optical observation, but the technologies can contribute to the same targeting process.

IMAGE: Elbit promotional illustration of drone systems designed to intercept communications, locate their sources, and jam transmissions – COMINT/COMJAM for UAS (Source: Elbit Systems)

A July 2024 investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories and published by ARIJ examined how Israeli drones were killing journalists in Gaza. It identified at least 18 media workers reportedly killed or wounded in precision strikes likely launched from drones. Four were wearing press vests. The investigation explained how intercepted communications can reveal a person’s location, while cameras and infrared sensors can provide visual confirmation.

Protecting a combat drone does not make its mission defensive

French-made equipment has reached the supply chain for the Hermes 900, a combat drone used in Gaza. In June 2024, Disclose revealed that Elbit had ordered Thales TSC 4000 IFF transponders for the aircraft. The devices identify friendly aircraft and help prevent collisions and friendly fire. Thales confirmed delivering two in 2024. Disclose reported that six others had been stopped by French customs.

IMAGE: An Elbit Hermes 900 drone of the type for which Thales supplied identification transponders according to Disclose (Source: Infodefensa)

Thales told Disclose it had supplied neither lethal equipment nor equipment ensuring the functioning of a lethal system. But the deliveries were not outside French government oversight. Disclose published a non-re-export certificate drawn up by the Armed Forces Ministry. It stipulated that the transponders were to be “neither sold, gifted, leased nor transformed without the prior agreement of the French government”, while permitting their integration into Elbit products.

In a report dated May 31, 2023, France’s then-ambassador to Israel, Eric Danon, recorded his check of the certificate’s signature and stamp. He wrote that they were “similar to those” of Elbit’s export controller.

France permits component exports for defensive purposes, drawing a distinction between equipment that protects and weapons that attack. Elbit’s own account shows how closely those functions can work together.senat+1

On January 27, 2025, Elbit announced an approximately $80 million contract to develop and begin installing an electronic-warfare and missile-warning suite on Israel’s F-16I fleet. The equipment would improve the aircraft’s survivability, “enabling it to operate safely in hostile environments”. Self-protection describes what equipment does for the aircraft, not the mission the aircraft conducts.

No military classification, no export licence required

The distinction between protective equipment and the missions it supports is not the only one shaping French exports to Elbit. Another concerns whether components are classified as controlled goods at all.

In October 2025, Disclose reported that Sermat, a French manufacturer of electromechanical systems for aviation and defence, had delivered 29 alternators and 171 actuators to Elbit over the preceding two years. The alternator type was designed for Hermes 900 drones. The actuators could equip several aircraft, including the Hermes 900, Hermes 450 and Britain’s Watchkeeper surveillance drone.

IMAGE: Sermat premises in France The manufacturer supplied alternators and actuators to Elbit before French authorities ordered shipments to Israel blocked (Source: Sermat)

Sermat markets similar applications across its military and aeronautical ranges. Its military-sector page lists alternators powering combat aircraft and generators providing backup electricity to military drones. Its aeronautical page lists onboard generators for drones, alongside actuators for combat-aircraft landing brakes and starters for their engines.

Disclose traced the decision to January 2012, when customs officers at Charles de Gaulle held up actuators destined for Elbit, considering them subject to dual-use controls. Sermat secured a favourable ruling three weeks later from the Economy Ministry’s dual-use service, arguing that the parts were intended for unarmed surveillance drones. That argument, not their suitability for military drone platforms, became the basis for exporting them without authorisation.

The government subsequently confirmed it had ordered a halt. In an answer published by the Senate on May 14, 2026, the Armed Forces Ministry confirmed that it had ordered customs to block all Sermat shipments to Israel as a precaution, without waiting for the investigation’s final conclusions.

France says no arms to Israel so what keeps reaching Elbit?

The Sermat block did not end French deliveries to Elbit. Research by the Palestinian Youth Movement and Urgence Palestine, reported by Middle East Eye in October, documented 35 consignments to Elbit subsidiaries between May and September 2026. Thirty-three passed through Charles de Gaulle; 32 of those travelled with El Al.

IMAGE: Campaigners launch a month of action against French arms transfers to Israel in Paris on 1 October 2026 alongside new findings on shipments to Elbit subsidiaries. Photograph by Pauline Ertel (Source: Middle East Eye)

On October 9, three French associations—the Franco-Palestinian association NIDAL, human rights organisation ASER and JURDI, the Jurists for Respect for International Law, petitioned the Paris Administrative Court to suspend a shipment of Mijno planetary gearboxes to Elbit’s land-systems division and require authorities to establish its classification, licensing status and end user.

The scheduled October 10 El Al flight departed without the cargo. The airline attributed that decision to Elbit but said it did not know why or where the shipment was. Elbit declined to comment, and no court intervention was established by the report.

On October 15, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the National Assembly: “We do not sell arms to Israel.” Moments later, he acknowledged that L’Humanité’s reporting had prompted investigations into possible arms sales and “precautionary measures pending their conclusions”. He did not identify the shipments or the measures.

France justified those exports by their defensive purpose or onward delivery to third countries. But when challenged in Parliament, Barrot offered investigations and precautionary measures, not an account of how the shipments had met those conditions before they were allowed to leave for Israel. The government’s assurances depended on what happened after delivery to Elbit. His answer stopped short of it.

France must assess the risk before the parts leave

France allows components to reach Israel for defensive purposes or assembly before re-export. Independent UN experts called for those transfers to stop in June 2024. Their appeal explicitly included weapons parts and components, warning that continued supplies could expose states and companies to responsibility for international crimes, including possible complicity in genocide. France’s exceptions leave open a supply route the experts urged states to close.

IMAGE: An El Al aircraft at Charles de Gaulle airport on 12 May 2025 French cargo workers later refused to load an Elbit shipment onto an Israel bound flight Photograph by Kiran Ridley AFP via Getty Images (Source: The Jerusalem Post)

A generator powering a military drone, an actuator controlling its movement or a self-protection suite helping a combat aircraft survive its mission can sustain a fighting capability without firing a shot. Whether that function is described as protective, or also has civilian applications, it does not establish the lawfulness of the operations it supports. Nor does assembly followed by re-export end the inquiry. The International Committee of the Red Cross explains that relevant transfer restrictions extend to parts and components, with foreseeable onward transfers also requiring scrutiny.

On April 30, 2024, the International Court of Justice expressly reminded states of their obligations concerning arms transfers, “in order to avoid the risk” that the weapons might violate the Genocide Convention or the Geneva Conventions. The duty to prevent genocide arises when a state knows, or should know, of a serious risk, not only after a final judgment. Neither an export licence nor an exemption from licensing settles whether those obligations have been met.

France has told Parliament that it assesses exports against possible uses and conditions on the ground, refusing equipment at risk of diversion or use contrary to international humanitarian law. It also says it ensures French components cannot enter systems used in ongoing Israeli operations in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories. Keeping that undertaking requires following the technology into the equipment it helps operate, identifying who will use it and assessing the operations it could sustain. Elbit’s name on a delivery document answers none of those questions.

For ADR’s November 12 parcel, the available reporting identifies the manufacturer, recipient and planned flight, not the intended assembly or eventual operator. That does not establish an unlawful use. It leaves unanswered the questions on which a preventive assessment depends.

The absence of proof that a component will contribute to a crime cannot replace an assessment of the risk that it could. Where the applicable legal threshold is met, the transfer must be refused. That decision belongs before departure, not after journalists uncover the shipment, workers challenge its loading, or associations ask a court to intervene.

READ MORE FRANCE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire South France Files

SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV

VISIT OUR TELEGRAM CHANNEL

21st Century Wire is an alternative news agency designed to enlighten, inform and educate readers about world events which are not always covered in the mainstream media.

Source: https://21stcenturywire.com/2026/11/12/could-adrs-latest-shipment-from-france-help-israel-target-gaza/