by Oui
Wed Jul 9th, 2025 at 05:49:39 PM EST
Outsourced and exposed: Civilian contractors are on the frontlines of the Gaza war | TOI |
As sanctioned firms secure Defense Ministry contracts, questions grow about oversight, legality, and the blurred line between soldier and civilian
With Israel's war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza in its 21st month, a quiet but dangerous reality has taken root: Civilian contractors, hired by the Defense Ministry, are regularly carrying out demolition, engineering and logistical work deep inside the war zone. Though officially noncombatants, many now operate on or near the front lines, assuming risks normally reserved for soldiers in uniform.
Those risks became tragically clear in late May, when 19-year-old David Libi, a civilian contractor, was killed by a bomb while operating engineering equipment during IDF operations in northern Gaza.
According to the military, Libi was working in the Jabalia area when the bomb detonated. He was the third Defense Ministry contractor killed in Gaza since the war began.
Seeking bulldozer drivers to demolish Gaza: how a genocide is being outsourced | The Guardian |
Omer Bartov is an Israeli-American historian and one of the foremost scholars on genocide in the world. He has spent over 25 years teaching a class on the subject. He deals with atrocities for a living, analyzing some of the very worst things that human beings are capable of. And yet even Bartov has said he can't bear looking at some of the excruciating images coming out of Gaza any more.
[I concur ... for some time now I find it unbearable to repeat over and over the horrors of genocidal acts by the Jewish State of Israel and its citizens ... the West is COMPLICIT in daily slaughter of children and mothers, women living in the death camp of Gaza ... Holocaust all over ... the victims have become fascist perpetrators - Oui]
What's happening, Bartov says, is unprecedented in the 21st century. "I don't know of any comparable situation. Recent estimates show that about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either completely destroyed or severely damaged," Bartov says. "The argument that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is conducting a war in Gaza is simply cynical, there is no war in Gaza. What the IDF is doing in Gaza is demolishing it. Hundreds of buildings are being bulldozed every week. This is not a secret, but mainstream media coverage has been insufficient."
Part of the reason that mainstream coverage has been insufficient is because reporting about what's happening in Gaza is difficult: foreign reporters are still not allowed into Gaza to see what is happening for themselves and Israel is slaughtering Palestinian journalists on the ground. I feel like I'm screaming into the void every time I repeat some version of that sentence and yet there still seems to be apathy about this assault on press freedom from some of my colleagues in the mainstream media.
As Bartov said, despite the lack of coverage, the systematic destruction of Gaza is hardly a secret. Indeed, the Israeli military is so desperate for extra bulldozers that, over the last couple of months, there have been ads for bulldozer drivers to help demolish Gaza posted on Facebook - some apparently offering as much as 3,000 shekels ($882) a day for the work.
'Hell Yeah': U.S. Contractors Say Colleagues Firing Live Ammo at Innocent Gazans at Aid Sites | Haaretz / MEE |
"It seems a deal is coming. We received permission to demolish houses on Shabbat as well," an officer from Gaza wrote to me.
Meanwhile a Haaretz article from this week looking into the outsourcing of bulldozer drivers found that they are paid per building: 2,500 shekels for the demolition of a small building, 5,000 shekels for a large building.
"The idea that the bulldozer has become a major article of genocide and warfare is quite new," says Neve Gordon, a professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London. "What is happening in Gaza is not a building here or there being demolished; it's the destruction of whole villages and towns."
Also new is the outsourcing of bulldozer drivers. "The Israeli military usually does not work in this way," says Gordon. "It can sequester bulldozers and draft the drivers as reserve soldiers." Reports from Israeli outlets show that the IDF is facing a shortage of drivers and is recruiting civilians for military operations in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. "I would consider this as a form of `outsourcing demolitions' used to advance a genocidal project," Gordon says.
