Israel Uses Foreign Mercenaries in Gaza

PALESTINE - ISRAEL, 6 May 2024

Steven Sahiounie | Global Research - TRANSCEND Media Service

Image from MD

The US are trying to make the Kurds partners with Israel but many Kurds take the side of the people of Gaza and the Palestinian resistance.

1 May 2024 – The international community is not only silent about Israel’s genocide but also sends foreign mercenaries to fight alongside Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza.

The IDF summoned hundreds of reserve soldiers to reinforce its ranks in preparation for its ground attack on the Gaza Strip. To bolster their Israeli ranks the IDF promoted an influx of people holding Israeli passports and living in foreign countries.

However, the Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, reported that Tel Aviv contacted international security contractors to provide fighters to perform military tasks during its ongoing war in Gaza.

Pedro Diaz Flores Corrales, aged 27 years, is a former soldier in the Spanish army and had previously fought as a mercenary in both Ukraine and Iraq. In addition to this, he is known for belonging to a fascist political group, the so-called Neo-Nazi movement, according to the Middle East website ‘Monitor’.

The group is involved in illicit arms trafficking, as well as mercenary exploitation.

Corrales justified his decision to fight alongside the IDF, and said that each participant in the fighting receives about 3,900 euros ($4,187) a weekly salary, and perks associated with the tasks they perform.

El Mundo reported that it had seen pictures of Corrales surrounded by mercenaries of different nationalities, including French, Germans, and Albanians, and even American Marines or members of the Special Forces who fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali, or Kosovo.

Last October, French media circulated news about a large number of French fighters joining the fight alongside the IDF.

A report by the Euro-Mediterranean Observatory revealed in the past the presence of hundreds of European mercenaries who volunteer for military service in the ranks of the IDF, as part of special forces, especially in the Gaza Strip.

Damage in Gaza Strip on 23 Oct 2023.
Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contract with APAimages, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Organizations directly linked to right-wing Jewish and Christian groups within Europe are organizing projects and campaigns to invite Europeans to join the IDF, as well as to join campaigns to support illegal settler operations against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Intending to use them in tunnels of Hamas, Israel offers Kurdish PKK terrorists $ 2,200 to join the frontlines in its genocidal war against Palestinians with thousands of terrorists and mercenaries already transported to Israel.

The Israeli government made a contract with PKK terrorists, with whom they agreed to a salary of 9 thousand Israeli shekels ($2,200) in addition to $25,000 of compensation in case of death or injury.

Israel intends to use PKK terrorists in its land attack on Gaza as it does not want to send its own soldiers into the tunnels of Hamas. Nearly 2,000 terrorists and mercenaries from Europe, Iraq, Syria and the US have moved into Israel. Peshmerga forces from northern Iraq have also been sent to the frontlines in Israel.

Calls are being made to recruit militants to fight for Israel, and many organizations have been carrying out extensive activities, such as: the “Kurdish-Israeli Friendship Union” founded by Mordehay Zaken, the “Kurdish Institute” and the “Israeli Jewish Kurds” organization.

Israeli organizations have been negotiating with Peshmerga to send Kurds from northern Iraq to Israel, reminding them of the support given by the Tel Aviv regime to them since 1958.

In Ayn al-Arab, an Israeli colonel and his team of seven people have been carrying out activities to find people experienced in urban warfare. The mercenaries recruited from Iraq and Syria were given Israeli citizenship identities. These were then transported to Israel by three planes. The last flight took off on October 29 from Erbil. Eight of those whom Israel sent to the front were killed in Gaza.

Kurdish singer and actor, Idan Amedi, who plays in the Netflix TV series “Fauda”, announced that he voluntarily joined the IDF and shared images from the Gaza Strip. The IDF are using social media influencers like Amedi. Images of Amedi calling Kurds to kill Palestinian are broadcast on Israeli television. Meanwhile, Duran Kalkan, one of the ringleaders of the PKK in Qandil, blamed Hamas and made statements in favor of Israel.

There are a total of 4,600 foreign volunteers in the ranks of the Israeli forces, in addition to many dual citizens from all over the world, whether in active or reserve service.

Israel relies on private security contractors, most notably the local company Global CST. The mercenaries working for this company are accused of committing crimes against humanity in the conflicts in which they participated in Latin America, South Ossetia and Africa.

Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) said they have sent 2,000 mercenaries to Israel to fight in Gaza. The PKK is an international recognized terrorist organization which has killed over 30,000 people in Turkey over three decades.

The IDF are afraid to enter the tunnels dug by Hamas, and fear that they will not emerge from the tunnels alive, and for this reason they use PKK and other mercenaries for this purpose, and mercenary fighters from European countries, Iraq, Syria, and America have arrived in Israel.

Image: Masoud Barzani (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

The Kurdish PKK members sent to Israel are mainly from northern Iraq, and were sent with the help of Masoud Barzani. It is estimated that there are about 200,000 Kurdish Jews in the area, some of whom have been sent.

War Crimes and Genocide

Foreigners fighting for Israel in Gaza are war criminals and mercenaries along with the IDF.

In December, Thomas Portes, a member of the French National Assembly (Parliament) revealed a letter he had sent to the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti , asking him to investigate some 4,185 French citizens believed to have been fighting with the IDF. The letter, posted on X, calls for the investigation of war crimes the French volunteers might have been participating in while fighting in Gaza, where war crimes have widely been reported.

French volunteers make up some 45 % of the total foreign volunteers joining the IDF as mercenaries. In contrast, the French people have been pouring, in their hundreds of thousands into the streets in support of Palestine and demanding a ceasefire.

According to Israel’s Defense Ministry report, published in 2016, Americans contribute 29 % of the foreigners joining the IDF annually, followed by the British, at 5 %. Some 100 Brits are currently serving in the IDF as it continues its genocidal war in Gaza.

80 % of the mercenaries usually serve for 18 months within the ranks of the IDF and get the same pay and treatment as regular IDF personnel. The majority of them join the IDF’s combat infantry, responsible for the daily killing of Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. On top of their regular monthly salaries, they receive nearly $7,000 after they complete their training.

Western Countries Turn a Blind Eye

Not a single European country, or the US and the UK, have publicly warned their own citizens against joining the IDF. The foreign fighters have participated in the war crimes taking place in Gaza.

A study published in the journal of Sociological Forum in June 2022, at least 1,200 Americans are serving in the IDF at any given time. The study found that, on any given year, some 3,500 foreign Jewish soldiers have been serving in the IDF over the last two decades.

21 American soldiers were killed when the IDF suffered its biggest single day loss in Gaza at the hands of the Palestinian Resistance fighters, who killed a total of 24 soldiers of the invading IDF.

While precise number of American citizens fighting in Gaza is unknown, they are thought to be in their hundreds. Since the Israeli attack on Gaza started on 7 October, at least 10,000 people living in the US have received draft notices from the Israel army to report for duty. Many of them do have dual Israeli citizenship, making accountability for possible war crimes a tricky legal issue, despite America’s Neutrality Act, dating back to the founding days of the US, making it illegal for any American citizen to take part in any foreign war, or establish a militia for that purpose. However, the Act has not been reinforced recently, as hundreds of Americans have participated in wars in Ukraine, in Libya in 2011 and, now, in Gaza.

Besides the US, foreign fighters joining the IDF come from at least five European countries, including Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. According to Italy’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, there were some 18,000 Italian nationals working and living in Israel when the war started, among them 1,000 who work for the IDF.

Not a single Western government has, so far, taken any action to punish its citizens fighting for Israel as it carries out genocide in Gaza.

Israeli-Kurdish Relationship

Israel has become the only country to openly support an independent Kurdish state, a result of good ties between Kurds and Jews.

In September 2017, Israel became the first and so far only country to openly voice support for “the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to attain a state of its own,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

The Kurds have been and will continue to be reliable and long-term allies of Israel since they are, like us, a minority group in the region, according to Kurd-Israel analysts.

The relationship between Israel and PKK and also the Peshmerga forces of northern Iraq, is nothing new. One of the biggest supporters of Massoud Barzani’s failed independence referendum in 2017 was Israel. While Israel was being established, many Jewish Kurds immigrated to Palestine. There are currently more than 200 thousand Jewish Kurds living in Israel. Mickey Levy, who was once elected as the Speaker of the Israeli Parliament, is one of them.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has remained silent amid Israel’s escalating war in Gaza. With delicate political and economic ties to the US, Israel and Iran, it’s hoping to avoid being dragged into a regional conflict.

The Kurdistan Region is a pro-American island in a sea of anti-American sentiment. If the war escalates, there will be pressure on it from both sides.

The two main parties are the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the main political power lies with the KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, who has studiously avoided commenting on the war in Gaza.

Although the KRG has no official ties with Israel, the two governments have economic ties and Israel has supported the establishment of an independent Kurdish state.

Should the Kurdish authorities take a pro-US and Israel tilt in the war on Gaza, Iran-backed parties in Baghdad could decide to turn up the pressure on the KRG, and for this reason the Kurds are trying to avoid taking a position.

They want to maintain a balance in the middle and appear neutral in the current war, while they will express sympathy for the Palestinians as a moral issue and consider the Kurdistan Region and its people to be uninvolved, say regional analysts.

In contrast, the Kurdistan Region’s two Islamist parties — the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) and the Kurdistan Justice Group (KJG) — have loudly condemned Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

There are also economic considerations. Until the Kurdistan Region’s independent oil exports were suspended in March 2023, Israel was a major destination of Kurdish crude starting in 2014. According to media reports, it received 183,000 barrels per day in February, although the amount fluctuated from month to month.

Conclusion

The US are trying to make the Kurds partners with Israel. But, many Kurds take the side of the people of Gaza and the Palestinian resistance.

Some have warned that the Kurds, who side with Israel in Gaza, would become a new target in the Islamic world together with Israel.

For other Kurds, there is a sense of empathy with the Palestinian suffering, but they also feel that there’s an immense double standard against the Kurds. This is leading the Kurds to refrain from showing any public support for Palestinians.

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Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award winning journalist and political commentator.

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