Report reveals vast loot Israeli soldiers took from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria

According to a recent report by the Israeli news website Ynet, Israeli soldiers have looted a significant amount of property from Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip, including nearly $28 million worth of cash, gold bars, luxury jewelry, and 183,000 weapons. This is just a portion of the looted items, and the scale of the looting is shocking, raising concerns about ethical conduct during military operations.

The report points out that the large-scale looting was mainly carried out by special army units specifically responsible for "confiscating" funds and other properties from "enemy" territories, but "independent" looting by soldiers was also rampant. Some soldiers even joked that carrying these spoils "broke their backs," highlighting the physical burden and questionable legality of their actions.

Ynet's report also mentioned that during the ongoing invasions of Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza, the number of weapons seized by soldiers was enough to form a small army. These weapons included various missiles, drones, advanced anti-tank missiles, thousands of explosives, thousands of standard rifles (including new ones still in packaging), sniper rifles, military communication equipment, compasses, telescopes, night vision equipment, uniforms, boots, dozens of vehicles, and even collector's items, such as 1930s French rifles and rare, valuable pistols used by Hezbollah.

An Israeli officer, A, who participated in the looting of southern Lebanon, said that because some villages could not use vehicles, the soldiers had to carry the loot on foot. "At first, we carried missiles, weapons, and boxes of ammunition back to Israel on our backs at night, but we quickly couldn't handle it. It really broke our backs. And our soldiers are very tough," he said, emphasizing the arduous nature of the task.

Currently, a large amount of equipment is stored in dozens of warehouses and secure basements throughout Israel, some of which are secret. The report states that it is unclear how Israel will handle these items. Although there had been political discussions about transporting some of the weapons to Ukraine to support its war against Russia, this idea has been shelved due to Israel's desire to remain neutral, especially considering Russia's interests in Syria. Furthermore, the quantity of these spoils is insignificant compared to the scale of the conflict in Ukraine, which is already supported by the United States and some European countries.

The Israeli military has not confirmed whether it has recycled the seized explosives for use by its engineering units to meet the huge demand for explosives, but it has experimented with this idea. Lieutenant Colonel Sharon Katzler, a member of the unit responsible for the looting, said that optimizing the use of stolen goods for the Israeli army is a matter of urgency. "For example, after Hamas invaded the western Negev on October 7, we studied the explosive devices they used and strengthened our tanks and armored personnel carriers accordingly," he said.