Aletho News

Gaza Inc: Where genocide is battle-tested and market-ready

A scalable model of industrial genocide sold to allies across the globe

By Aymun Moosavi | The Cradle | September 12, 2025

The Israeli occupation state has turned its war on Palestinians into a privatized killing industry. Gaza is where tech firms, mercenaries, and consultancy giants orchestrate surveillance, displacement, and mass death for profit. Apart from being colonial warfare, it is also a prototype for the global export of industrial-scale extermination, repackaged as security innovation. Data-driven and profit-focused, this model, being tested on Palestinians today, will be deployed elsewhere tomorrow. A growing list of private firms now operate as the invisible hand of genocide. Their services range from identifying targets for airstrikes to engineering famine and facilitating mass displacement.

Gaza is where genocide meets capitalism

Since the early 2000s, private military companies (PMCs) have wedged themselves deeply into the economy of war. Firms like Blackwater (now Academi) and Dyncorp International marked a pivotal shift, stepping into roles traditionally held by national militaries.

Initially focused on security and logistics in Iraq and Afghanistan, these companies have expanded their operations, providing combat support and acting as key players in warzones worldwide, including in parts of Africa, Yemen, and Haiti. The irony is evident: The UAE has become a new hub for these private military companies, which find refuge in the Gulf state, where mercenaries receive special privileges from local authorities.

Private companies evolved from distant contractors to active agents of war, operating with impunity. This laid the groundwork for the current model, where non-military personnel influence political outcomes without limits or regulation. Another layer of support comes from private nonprofits. A recent Drop Site News report reveals how US organizations like American Friends of Judea and Samaria (AFJS) and Friends of Israel leverage their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status to funnel donations directly to Israeli military operations and settlements. These groups supply equipment such as thermal drones, helmets, vests, and first aid kits to units like the 646 Paratrooper Brigade, even inside Gaza. Beyond logistics, they back settlement projects, lobby for the annexation of the occupied West Bank, run educational campaigns promoting Israeli sovereignty, and support military efforts in Lebanon against Hezbollah.

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) broadened the scope of acceptable actors of war, opening new, lucrative opportunities in surveillance and intelligence gathering. Israel has embraced this model but applied it with chilling precision. Its elite Unit 8200, the digital brain of the occupation state, has fused military surveillance with corporate tech to create the world’s first AI-assisted genocide. Tools like Lavender and The Gospel now scan Palestinian communications, using dialect recognition and metadata to auto-generate kill lists.

These tools, primarily focused on Arabic dialects, were designed to monitor Palestinians and other Arabic-speaking populations. Companies like Palantir, Google, Meta, and Microsoft Azure have reportedly facilitated these projects, assisting in the development of Lavender and other surveillance systems. Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, invest in global surveillance tech firms that fuel the machinery of genocide.

With AI systems deciding who lives and dies, the line between military command and corporate algorithm has all but vanished. The very infrastructure of Israel’s occupation, from surveillance to assassination, has been outsourced, streamlined, and sold.

From battle-tested weapons to algorithmic apartheid

Israel’s economy is built on militarized capitalism. Its $14.8 billion in weapons sales this year alone are propped up by a marketing line as cynical as it is effective: “battle-tested” on Palestinians. A prime example is Smartshooter’s weaponry, an Israeli firm, being stocked by the UK military since June 2023 in a £4.6-million ($5.7 million) deal. Smartshooter’s technology has been used by the occupation army’s elite Maglan Unit and Golani Brigade during the assault on Gaza.

Journalist Antony Loewenstein was quoted by Declassified as saying:

“Smartshooter is just one of many Israeli companies testing equipment on occupied Palestinians. It’s a highly profitable business and the slaughter in Gaza isn’t slowing down the trade. If anything, it’s increasing due to many nations attracted to the Israeli model of subjugation and control.”

Today, Israel’s arms and tech sectors are indistinguishable. Surveillance software, AI-driven kill lists, and automated targeting systems are packaged alongside rifles and drones. Warfare has become a sandbox for tech innovation, turning Gaza into a lab where privatized genocide is perfected. This fusion has allowed Tel Aviv to industrialize its occupation, creating a modular system of subjugation that can be exported globally. What began as the militarization of tech has become something far more dangerous: the technologization of genocide.

McGenocide 

Israel’s model for genocide has international buyers. A recent headline in Haaretz, “Why the future of Israeli defense lies in India,” highlighted the mutual benefits of the Israel–India defense partnership. For Tel Aviv, it reduces reliance on the west, while India gains some strategic leverage in West Asia. Between 2001 and 2021, India imported $4.2 billion worth of Israeli defense technology, including advanced drones and military components.

More recently, Europe became Israel’s biggest arms purchaser, making up to 54 percent of total exports in 2024. In the wake of Brexit and the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, Britain, in particular, has strengthened its defense coordination with Israel in an attempt to reposition itself as a key, relevant player in a multipolar order. Reports indicate London is preparing a $2.69-billion deal with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, to train 60,000 British soldiers annually.

This relationship deepened earlier this year when it was revealed that a British military academy was training occupation army soldiers, many of whom have been implicated in war crimes during the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts. That same Elbit provides 85 percent of the occupation army’s drones and has been repeatedly targeted by the proscribed Palestine Action for its direct role in war crimes. London has not only shielded the company but also ramped up joint operations.

Britain also produces 15 percent of all F-35 fighter jet components. These jets have been used relentlessly in the Gaza genocide, yet their manufacture continues, upheld by British courts despite protests. Far from neutrality, Britain is a stakeholder in Tel Aviv’s genocidal infrastructure. The arms industry has now become a global business, intertwining defense, technology, and systemic oppression. Israel’s model for genocide, which profits directly from this intersection, has spread beyond its borders, with international partners complicit in its success.

Weaponizing aid, redesigning Gaza

Private contractors are now embedded in every layer of Israel’s war machine, including its cynical manipulation of humanitarian aid. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), allegedly set up to facilitate aid, has been exposed for colluding with occupation forces, storing intelligence, and deploying private security firms with zero humanitarian credentials. The role of private companies extends far beyond distant surveillance assistance, infiltrating the mechanisms of humanitarian aid. The GHF has repeatedly come under fire for violating the core principles of aid delivery, such as impartiality and independence. It has been found to fire into crowds, store intelligence, and collaborate with Israeli authorities, while outsourcing private security firms like Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) and UG Solutions (UGS), two private security firms led by personnel with no humanitarian expertise. UGS has recently been exposed as having recruited members of a notorious anti-Islam biker gang from the US. In total, 2,465 Palestinians have been killed and over 17,948 injured while waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The key issue lies in the fact that private companies are not bound by the same ethical standards as traditional humanitarian organisations. This lack of regulation enables them to function as extensions of the occupation, advancing Israel’s goals under the guise of aid with little to no accountability. Privatized aid is therefore not a secondary detail, but a central component of Israel’s genocide model, which transforms humanitarian aid to another tool of occupation.

Scorching the Earth 

US President Donald Trump’s ‘Gaza Riviera’ plan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of mass expulsion both hinge on a complete reimagining of Gaza. Trump’s post-war plan requires a population willing to turn into subjects of an economic hub, while Netanyahu envisions a land cleansed of Palestinians, on which he can erect new illegal settlements. Unlike the imperial model, the genocide model requires the cleansing of a population, as it is easier – and more efficient – to eliminate a population than to make it servile. This makes the privatization of a post-war Gaza not just an option, but a necessity.

According to the Financial Times (FT), Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the US consultancy partly responsible for the establishment of GHF, was reportedly tasked with estimating the cost of Gazan relocation as part of a wider post-war reconstruction plan. Reports also point to the greater reliance on US mercenaries to manage the post-war environment and control the movement of arms, showing how both the imperial model and Israel’s genocide model rely on each other to sustain themselves.

Humanitarian aid has been instrumental in realizing this vision. The four ‘aid distribution’ sites, described by the UN officials as “death traps,” have become militarized zones, driving Palestinians into even smaller enclaves in southern Gaza, directly contributing to Israel’s displacement objective. This is not the future of war. It is the present. And it is being built, tested, and sold in Gaza.

September 13, 2025 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Human rights, India, Israel, Palestine, UK, United States, Zionism