{"id":30739,"date":"2023-12-22T12:10:58","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T20:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=30739"},"modified":"2023-12-22T12:10:58","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T20:10:58","slug":"meet-the-companies-profiting-from-israels-war-on-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/12\/22\/meet-the-companies-profiting-from-israels-war-on-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Companies Profiting From Israel’s War on Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Smoke<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Smoke rises as Israeli artillery units and howitzers stationed in the military zone launch attacks near the Gaza border in Nahal Oz, Israel on December 10, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo: Mostafa Alkharouf\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

JESSICA CORBETT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 20, 2023 (CommonDreams.org)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of Wednesday, a U.S.-based Quaker group’s online database<\/a> listed over two dozen companies profiting from the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces have spent the last 10 weeks waging what experts call a “genocidal<\/a>” war that sent<\/a> defense stocks soaring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Backed by $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the United States, Israel declared war on October 7 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack that killed over 1,100 people. Since then, Israeli forces have killed over 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza\u2014sparking massive protests<\/a> demanding a cease-fire around the world, including many led by Jewish people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“War and attacks on civilians will never bring safety or peace to Israelis or Palestinians.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The growing death toll, displacement, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and difficulties in delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave have also increased scrutiny of a $14.3 billion package for the war that the Biden administration requested from Congress as well as criticism of the U.S. weapon-makers and billionaire donors who are arming and enabling<\/a> the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without massive weapon transfers from the U.S.,” said Noam Perry of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the group behind the tool, in a statement Wednesday. “As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the AFSC webpage details:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shortly after October 7, the U.S. government started transferring to Israel massive amounts of weapons. Among these weapons, Israel received<\/a> more than 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within just the first month-and-a-half. These transfers have been deliberately shrouded in secrecy<\/a> to avoid public scrutiny and prevent Congress from exercising any meaningful oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of these weapons were purchased using U.S. taxpayers’ money through the Foreign Military Sales program; some were direct commercial sales purchased through Israel’s own budget; and some were replenished U.S. military stockpiles in Israel, which the Israeli military may also use<\/a>. A list of known U.S. arms transfers is maintained by the Forum on the Arms Trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The webpage notes that the list is based on reporting, social media, and other open sources, and “focuses on weapons used by Israel because all Palestinian militant groups are already sanctioned and receive no support from Western governments or corporations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Boeing, the world’s fifth-largest weapon manufacturer, makes F-15 fighter jets and Apache AH-64 attack helicopters used by the Israeli forces, as well as “multiple types of unguided small diameter bombs (SDBs) and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits” that have been used “extensively” during the war, including in a bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After decades of Israeli occupation forces using Caterpillar’s armored D9 bulldozers to “demolish Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and to enforce the blockade of the Gaza Strip,” the machines<\/a> “have been crucial<\/a> in the Israeli military’s ground invasion” of the enclave, according to AFSC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israeli forces are invading the Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, bringing a bulldozer to destroy infrastructure belonging to the refugees there. This is on the same day that Israeli forces bulldozed and murdered displaced people and their tents in Kamal Adwan hospital, Gaza. pic.twitter.com\/CH3gdoe1Zd<\/a><\/p>— Good Shepherd Collective (@Shepherds4Good) December 16, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote>