Private companies earn in the Gaza Strip. “Private subcontractors receive 5,000 shekels for each demolished house”
In the war in the Gaza Strip, private companies also play a big role, whose activities, however, raises a lot of controversy. Israeli construction companies dealing with, among others destroying houses. American military companies protect the help system criticized by the UN. The Israeli army also benefits from the support of large technology concerns.
Civil Israeli companies regularly perform demolition, engineering and logistics works in areas deep in the Gaza Strip, which raises questions about the legality of these activities, supervision over these entities and the blurring of borders between soldiers and civilian employees – Times of Israel wrote this week. He added that the activity of these entities seems to grow, although the exact data is not available.
At the end of May, 19-year-old Dawid Libi, who was a driver of heavy construction machines, was killed in the bomb explosion. It was the third civilian employee employed by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, who died in the war.
Libi worked at Libi Construction and Infrastructure, belonging to his father, Harel Libi, who lives in illegal – also from the point of view of the Israeli authorities – a housing estate on the occupied west shore. Harel Libi, a few days before his son's death, was sanctions by the United Kingdom government along with other organizations and representatives of the movement of extremist settlers. The government in London accused him of acts of aggression and violence against Palestinians.
Despite the sanctions and accusations of participating in the expansion of illegal housing estates, the Israeli Ministry of Defense continued cooperation with the company – Times of Israel pointed out.
The Israeli army announced on Friday that it is already controlling 65 percent. Gaza zones.
The army occupies, among others A belt around the borders of the Palestinian territory, where the army forms a buffer zone. Civilians were ordered to evacuate in these areas. At the beginning of April, anonymous soldiers told the AP agency that the zone was systematically enlarged, initially it had a kilometer wide, later three. According to the agency, the army was to receive orders to destroy everything in this area, which is to prevent terrorists from working.
“Private subcontractors receive 5,000 Shakes (about PLN 5,400) for each demolished house,” one of the soldiers told Israeli daily. “They earn a fortune, from their point of view every moment when they do not deal with demolition, it is a loss of money,” he added.
Civil contractors operate where they want, demolish buildings throughout the front line, and relatively small troops must protect them – Haarec wrote, citing the accounts of soldiers. As a result, the troops protecting private builders are approaching the distribution points for Palestinian assistance, “where shootings explode and people die” – the newspaper noted.
From the end of May The distribution of food assistance in the Gaza Strip was taken over by the private GHF Foundation. According to “Haareca” The logistics of this operation are managed by the American company Safe Reach Solutions (SRS). According to journal reports, SRS has no experience in conducting humanitarian projects on such a scale. It was added that the choice of this company was opaque and was made by a group of close associates of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, bypassing standard channels, including the army and the Ministry of Defense.
Israeli and American media emphasize that GHF and SRS financing is unclear. Last week, the American State Department awarded GHF a subsidy of $ 30 million, other sources of income of this foundation remain unknown – AP noted.
The activity of GHF from the beginning aroused criticism of humanitarian organizations already present in the Gaza Strip, including the UN. There are allegations that the new system is politicized, militarized and too small to meet the needs of Palestiniansand above all – that he exposes the civilians desperately desperate to death.
The Israeli and GHF authorities emphasize that the Foundation works in such a way that help does not fall into the hands of a terrorist Hamas, which robbed a large part of food, which other organizations could not deal with.
Shooting regularly explodes around GHF points, in which, according to the UN and local authorities, about 600 people have already died. The Palestinian authorities and the media controlled by Hamas inform that people seeking help are dying from the bullets of Israeli soldiers. The army always denies that civilians were intentionally fired, but several times admitted that the soldiers had filed warning arrows to the people approaching them.
The GHF centers themselves are protected by the American military company UG Solutionswhich employs, among others Veterans of the US armed forces. Private security guards from the USA and Egypt have already worked before checking Palestinians at control points during the winter. Nearly a two -month truce.
The AP agency has announced this week that American contractors protecting GHF points use acute ammunition, bang grenades and pepper gas towards Palestinians. Two of them said AP that people employed for this work are unskilled, insufficiently checked, and at the same time “heavily armed”. It has been added that they work in an atmosphere of impunity. GHF denied AP reports.
The American daily Washington Post wrote in January that Google Technology after the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip provided advanced technologies using the artificial intelligence (AI) of the Israeli army.
Documents show that Google was directly cooperated with the Israeli Ministry of Defense and the armed forces, despite public assurances that it is distanced from the security apparatus of this country – the newspaper emphasized.
A few days later, the Palestinian-Israeli portal +972 Magazine, the Israeli Local Call service and the British daily The Guardian said that During the war, Microsoft strengthened cooperation with the Israeli armed forces, Responding to the increase in army's demand for processing and storage services in the cloud and access to AI systems.
In the spring of 2024, the world media reported that Israel's armed forces use programs based on AI to identify Hamas fighters as goals. There have been allegations that too small people in the choice of goals and excessive trust in AI algorithms raises the number of bystanders. The Israeli army replied that some of these reports were unfounded, and analysts use AI systems as auxiliary tools.
The war in the Gaza Strip has been going on from October 7, 2023, when about 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack to the south of Israel, and 251 was kidnapped. According to the data controlled by HAMAS, administration in Israeli retaliation died over 57.2 thousand. Palestinians. The gauze zone is ruined, it has a humanitarian crisis.
On Friday evening, Hamas positively responded to the latest proposal to suspend weapons presented by the mediators. It was already reported that Israel also agreed to the terms of the agreement. It seems that the perspective of the conclusion of a truce is closest to months.
From Jerusalem Jerzy Adamiak (PAP)
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