[News] Dirty secret of Israel’s weapons exports: They’re tested on Palestinians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Dirty secret of Israel’s weapons exports: They’re tested on Palestinians

*Weapons tested in each war Israel wages see a spike in global demand. The
current Gaza war is the latest laboratory for its arms industry.*
[image: Abdel Rahim Moussa, 62, was injured by an Israeli army tank shell
approximately a kilometre from the Gaza border with Israel, during the 2012
conflict.]
Abdel Rahim Moussa, 62, was injured by an Israeli army tank shell
approximately a kilometre from the Gaza border with Israel, during the 2012
conflict [Paddy Dowling/Al Jazeera]
By Paddy Dowling <https://www.aljazeera.com/author/paddy-dowling>
Published On 17 Nov 2023
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/17/israels-weapons-industry-is-the-gaza-war-its-latest-test-lab
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*Amman, Jordan –* The Israeli army released footage on October 22 of its
Maglan commando unit deploying a new precision-guided 120mm mortar bomb
called the Iron Sting, against Hamas in Gaza.

The bomb’s Haifa-based manufacturer, Elbit Systems, has been advertising
its qualities on the public relations page of its website since March 2021,
when it was integrated into the Israeli military.

Benny Gantz, then Israel’s defence minister and now a part of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet, described the Iron Sting as
“designed to engage targets precisely, in both open terrains and urban
environments, while reducing the possibility of collateral damage and
preventing injury to non-combatants”.

It’s a claim echoed by Mark Regev, Netanyahu’s former spokesperson, for the
country’s overall approach to its war on Gaza, in which, he has said,
Israel is “trying to be as surgical as humanly possible”.

Yet, more than one month after Israel launched the aerial bombardment of
Gaza following a surprise Hamas attack, it has killed at least 11,400
Palestinian civilians
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker>,
and injured 30,000 in the besieged strip and the occupied West Bank. More
than 4,700 of Gaza’s children are dead. Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people
in their October 7 attack.

Israel’s devastatingly “surgical” killing machines, tested on Palestinians,
have global takers, say analysts.
[image: An unspent casing from Israeli made drone rocket designed to
explode on impact ejecting metal cubes out from a copper canister. The
projectile spools out at a velocity designed to cut a human in half from
the midriff.]An unspent casing from an Israeli Spike drone rocket designed
to explode on impact ejecting metal cubes from a copper canister. The
projectile spools out at a velocity that can cut a human in half [Paddy
Dowling/Al Jazeera] ‘Tissue torn from flesh’

Ahmed Saeed al-Najar, 28, was driving his taxi in Rafah during Gaza’s third
war of 2014 when a drone missile came in through the open sunroof of his
taxi. It exploded in the car, instantly decapitating and killing all six of
his passengers, his best friend included.

The car had been targeted by an Israeli Spike drone rocket, which can be
modified to carry a fragmentation sleeve of thousands of 3mm tungsten
cubes, said to affect an area of approximately 20 metres in diameter. The
cubes puncture metal and “cause tissue to be torn from flesh”, literally
shredding anyone within range, according to Erik Fosse, a Norwegian doctor
working in Gaza.

Al-Najar, rescued from the wreckage of his car, suffered extensive burns,
the loss of his right eye, multiple shrapnel wounds and the loss of his
right leg from the mid-thigh point, amputated by the blast.

But by 2014, drones that carry the Spike rocket had already become highly
sought-after by other countries.

The Heron TP “Eitan” drone is Israel’s largest unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) and was brought into service in 2007. Manufactured by the state-owned
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) — Israel’s largest aerospace and defence
company and the country’s largest industrial exporter – it can fly up to 40
hours continuously and can carry four Spike missiles.

The Eitan was first used during “Operation Cast Lead” in the 2008-09 Gaza
war for attacks against civilians, according to the non-governmental
organisation, Drone Wars UK. According to Defence for Children
International, of the 353 children killed and 860 injured during Operation
Cast Lead, 116 died from missiles launched by drones.

After the war, IAI witnessed a surge in orders of Heron variant drones from
at least 10 countries between 2008-2011. During this period, more than 100
drones were purchased, leased or acquired under joint venture schemes.

India – Israel’s largest military buyer, which operates more than 100
Israeli-made UAVs – purchased 34 Heron drones in this period, followed by
France (24), Brazil (14) and Australia (10), according to a 2014 report
<https://dronewarsuk.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/israel-and-the-drone-wars.pdf>
by Drone Wars UK.

That does not mean that Israel wages wars to advertise its weapons, said
experts. “Nobody fights wars just to show off their weapons,” said Lawrence
Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London.

Yet, at the same time, “in every war against Gaza a range of weapons and
surveillance tech has been deployed against the Palestinians which is then
marketed and sold to huge amounts of nations around the world,” said Antony
Loewenstein, independent journalist and author of The Palestine Laboratory.
[image: Israeli soldiers look at an IAI Eitan, also known as the Heron TP,
surveillance unmanned air vehicle (UAV) on display at Tel Nof Air Force
Base near Tel Aviv]Israeli soldiers look at an IAI Eitan, also known as the
Heron TP, surveillance unmanned air vehicle (UAV) on display at Tel Nof
Airbase near Tel Aviv in February, 2010 [Gil Cohen/Reuters] ‘An insurance
policy’

Weapons exports have uses beyond the revenue they bring to Israel.

“It’s more than that, it’s also an insurance policy to insulate themselves
from the intense pressure to change their behaviour over the decades-long
occupation of Palestinians,” said Loewenstein.

Last month, Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to condemn the
surprise attack launched by Hamas on October 7 as a “terrorist attack”
instead responding that “terrorism is killing innocent children in
Palestine”.

In response, the Israeli government halted all sales of defence and
security equipment and associated services to the Latin American country.

Colombia is one of an estimated 130 countries that have bought weapons,
drones and cyberspying technology from Israel, the world’s 10th-largest
weapons exporter.

Israel is, by far, the world’s largest exporter of military drones: in
2017, it was estimated that it was behind nearly two-thirds of all UAV
exports <https://drones.rusi.org/countries/israel/> over the previous three
decades.

Elbit, the maker of the Iron Sting, provides up to 85 percent of the
land-based equipment procured by the Israeli military and about 85 percent
of its drones, according to Database of Israeli Military and Security
Export (DIMSE).

But after the 2014 Gaza war, its export market expanded significantly, too.
Elbit promotes its Hermes UAVs as “combat-proven” and the “primary platform
of the IDF in counter-terror operations”.

The Hermes 450 and Hermes 900 were both used extensively in “Operation
Protective Edge”, Israel’s 2014 war, during which 37 percent of fatalities
were attributed to drone attacks, according to an estimate by the
Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights.

Elbit subsequently secured contracts for the new Hermes 900 drone with more
than 20 countries worldwide including the Philippines, which purchased 13,
as well as India, Azerbaijan, Canada, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Iceland, the
European Union, Mexico, Switzerland and Thailand. In March 2023, Elbit
Systems announced their 120th order for the Hermes 900.

The new “Nizoz” (Spark) surveillance drone manufactured by Rafael, a
state-owned weapons contractor that forms the Big Three of Israel’s arms
industry with IAI and Elbit, has reportedly now entered the current Gaza
war. Rafael has an order backlog which currently stands at $10.1bn.

Al Jazeera approached Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and
IAI for comment but the firms were yet to respond before time of
publication.
[image: The destroyed remains of the al-Jawhara Tower in Gaza City’s Rimal
neighbourhood bombed in May 17, 2021 during Gaza’s fourth war [Paddy
Dowling/Al Jazeera]]The remains of the al-Jawhara Tower in Gaza City’s
Remal neighbourhood, which was bombed in May 17, 2021, during Gaza’s fourth
war [Paddy Dowling/Al Jazeera] Hard to track

For all of its military export successes, the full extent of Israel’s
defence industry sales remains masked.

A report from Amnesty International in 2019 noted that the whole process by
which Israel sells arms is shrouded in secrecy “with no documentation of
sales, one cannot know when [these arms] were sold, by which company, how
many and so on”.

Amnesty found that “Israeli companies exported weapons which reached their
destination after a series of transactions, thereby skirting international
monitoring”.

Israel has not ratified the Arms Trade Treaty, which prohibits the sale of
weapons at risk of being used in genocide and crimes against humanity. As
such, its weapons exports have influenced the course of history for several
nations, many led by controversial regimes.

Israel sold weapons to the South African apartheid government in 1975 and
even agreed to supply nuclear warheads, according to declassified documents
– though Israel denies doing so. Napalm and other weapons were supplied to El
Salvador
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/6/5/israels-latin-american-trail-of-terror>
during its counterinsurgency wars between 1980-1992 that killed more than
75,000 civilians.

In 1994, Israeli-made bullets, rifles and grenades were allegedly used
in Rwanda’s
genocide
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/23/israel-maintains-robust-arms-trade-with-rogue-regimes>
which killed at least 800,000 people. Israel supplied weapons to the
Serbian army that waged war against Bosnia from 1992-1995.

Despite the Israeli government’s own statement in 2018 declaring it had
ceased sales to Myanmar, the Haaretz newspaper
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-09-05/ty-article/.premium/israel-sold-arms-to-myanmar-even-after-the-2021-military-coup/0000018a-6000-d339-a3af-f5b673e90000>
reported last year that weapons manufacturers continued supplying the
military government until 2022, in violation of the 2017 international arms
embargo against the country.

And, in September this year, Israel supplied UAVs, missiles and mortars to
Azerbaijan for its campaign to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh, during which
100,000 ethnic Armenians were displaced.

Part of what makes it hard to track Israeli weapons exports is the very
nature of the arms trade. “Governments buy and sell to each other directly
and through their large defence contractors, but also there is a parallel
trade by private firms that is usually not illegal but provides plausible
deniability,” Stephen Badsey, professor of conflict studies at
Wolverhampton University, said.

The largest single control that seller nations maintain over the use of
their weapons by other countries is the requirement for “end user” or “end
use” rules, Badsey said. But as a major weapons exporter that doesn’t
subscribe to the Arms Trade Treaty, Israel has built a reputation for loose
export norms.

In 2018, former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said he would ask his
military to purchase weapons exclusively from Israel because, unlike the
United States or Europe, Israel did not impose restrictions.

New government regulations introduced last year will allow Israel to sell
more weapons to a greater range of countries without licences – and so,
with less oversight. It pays: Israeli weapon export figures have doubled
over the past decade, totalling $12.5bn last year.

Battle proven on ‘human animals’

Two days after the October 7 Hamas attack, Israel’s minister of defence
Yoav Gallant compared the Palestinian people with “human animals”.

To Loewenstein, the dehumanising comments were unsurprising. “It is obvious
over Israel’s occupation and countless wars that Palestinians are treated
as second-class citizens. Like animals,” he said.

Over the years, the Israeli army has tested rubber bullets, artificial
intelligence-powered robotic guns and various forms of crowd dispersal
solutions, which have inflicted severe injuries on Palestinians.

Nabeel al-Shawa, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon who has worked in Gaza
since 1978, treated many Palestinians wounded by Israeli firing on the
Great March of Return in 2018 – when tens of thousands of Palestinians
demanded they be allowed to return to the land they were forcibly removed
from in 1948.

“For Israeli snipers, this was merely target practice with humans,” he
said. “Most patients had been shot in joints deliberately to cause maximum
damage, but not kill.

“These new rounds the Israeli army used caused injuries I have never seen
before. In some cases the limb appeared intact, however, during surgery, I
could not distinguish between bone and soft tissue.”

So can Israeli weapons manufacturers legitimately market their weaponry as
“battle proven” when the combat often targets unarmed civilians?

They can, said Zoran Kusovac, a geopolitical and security analyst.

“If a weapon’s main purpose is proven in the actual battlefield or in as
near realistic circumstances as possible, then they are battle proven,” he
said. “You cannot blame countries for buying from Israel. You can test all
you want in a lab, but Israel is testing in the field, and as there are
never any lags of time between one period of combat to the next, the
development cycle is virtually in real time.

“And there is of course that adage; that if it’s good enough for the IDF,
then it must be good enough for us.”
[image: Sharp metal cube projectiles which are ejected from an Israeli
designed Spike drone rocket [Paddy Dowling/Al Jazeera]]Sharp metal cube
projectiles which are ejected from an Israeli-designed Spike drone rocket
[Paddy Dowling/Al Jazeera] New weapons test in Gaza 2023?

Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, last week
said in a press statement that medical teams in the enclave had “observed
severe burns on the bodies of Palestinians who were killed and wounded by
Israel’s bombs  – whether caused by an unknown weapon or not – is something
they have not seen in previous conflicts”.

Dr Ahmed el-Mokhallalati from the burn and plastic surgery division at
al-Shifa Hospital, in an interview with the Toronto Star
<https://www.thestar.com/news/world/gaza-doctors-say-they-re-seeing-intense-unusual-burns-after-israeli-airstrikes/article_8d8fa2c2-d50d-5d8a-9596-ead082ba2485.html>,
described the wounds as “very deep – third and fourth-degree burns, and the
skin tissue is impregnated with black particles and most of the skin
thickness and all the layers underneath are burned down to the bone”.

El-Mokhallalati said that these weren’t phosphorus burns, “but a
combination of some kind of incendiary bomb wave and other components”.

The Israeli military has not commented so far on the statement made by
Gaza’s Ministry. But the mystery incendiary bombs, the Iron Sting’s debut
and the reported use of the new Spark drone in the current war suggest that
Israel is once again testing new weapons in conflict.

“Israel’s weapons will continue to remain attractive to international
buyers based on performance in the occupation,” Loewenstein said. “But
Israel is not just selling weapons; they’re selling the ideology to other
countries – of getting away with it.”
Source: Al Jazeera
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