Syria Support Movement solidarity with the Syrian people
from the News Desk at The Cradle, February 28, 2025
The Israeli military’s “Loot Unit” has seized enough weaponry to establish “a small army,” as well as “mountains” of cash and gold since launching the wars in the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon, and Syria, Ynet reported on 28 February.
“We don’t like to just take in loot, keep it, and maintain it without making a profit from it,” admits Lt. Col. Sharon-Kotler. “I always ask what the value of this loot is?”
Soldiers from the loot unit stole “mountains of cash” in enemy territory. In one case, the loot unit seized NIS 4 million (around $1 million) from the private home of a Hamas brigade commander.
The stolen money is counted in bank machines that the military purchased for the looting unit, alongside scales for checking the value of gold bars and jewelry seized in Lebanon and Gaza.
The cash and gold are transferred in secured vehicles to the Ministry of Defense’s main cash desk section in The Kirya in Tel Aviv. There, a recount is carried out and deposited in the Bank of Israel for confiscation.
So far, more than NIS 100 million (around $28 million) in cash from Gaza and Lebanon have been confiscated in this way, including various currencies such as shekels (NIS), dollars, euros, and those of Arab nations.
The special unit has also seized 180,000 items of weaponry, including a variety of anti-aircraft missiles, drones, advanced anti-tank missiles of all ranges, thousands of explosive charges, thousands of standard rifles, sniper rifles, military radios, compasses, binoculars, night vision devices, uniforms, shoes, dozens of vehicles, and even collector’s treasures such as French rifles from the 1930s and rare, valuable pistols used by Hezbollah resistance fighters.
Kill All, Burn All, Loot All: Israel’s army following the same ‘Three Alls’ as the savage army of Imperial Japan?
An Israeli soldier gleefully ransacks a gift shop in Gaza after all the residents in the area were either forcibly displaced or killed. https://t.co/VqVda4juXx pic.twitter.com/bHOwaTaJwz
— Going Underground (@GUnderground_TV) December 9, 2023
The Israeli news outlet stated that Israeli commandos were sent on dozens of secret operations in southern Lebanon to locate and seize caches of weapons and ammunition intended to be used by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force for an invasion of the Galilee in northern Israel.
During the missions, the commandos familiarized themselves with the area and made preparations for the large-scale ground operation carried out by other Israeli army brigades that started in late September 2024.
One commando claimed he and others brought looted Hezbollah weapons back to Israel on foot to avoid detection.
“At first, we carried the missiles, weapons, and boxes of ammunition we found there to Israel on our backs at night, but pretty quickly, it was too much. It really broke our backs,” he stated.
Over 500 people, most of them in the reserves, serve in the loot unit under the Israeli military’s central supply center in the Technology and Logistics Division (ATL), but in total, 2,400 soldiers assist in looting operations.
The looting of weapons is carried out for several purposes: First, to understand the enemy’s weapons and gather intelligence for continued operations, and second, to store the weapons for future use, whether to sell or deliver them to another country or recycle them for the army’s needs.
20 million shekels were already looted from Gaza and taken by the State of Israel. I wonder how much more was looted and went straight into soldiers’ personal pockets. pic.twitter.com/w0PsnUnq0B
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) January 21, 2024
Another goal of capturing loot is to “use the enemy’s weapons for deception,” Ynet wrote.
The Israeli military “turned the campaign into a war of tricks, with traps and temptations that it set against Hezbollah and Hamas, and in many cases also succeeded in trapping terrorists,” the news outlet claimed.
After the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government in December, Israeli soldiers entered Syrian territory and seized weapons and equipment from the disbanded Syrian army without encountering any resistance.
Soldiers collected thousands of weapons from the Syrian army, including several T-55 tanks, anti-tank missiles, large Schwaz charges, Kalashnikov rifles, and considerable amounts of ammunition.
“In general, it was very surreal for us, collecting loot from an enemy without fighting him at all, just going into his bases and loading it,” Lt. Col. Idan said.
Israeli troops boast about looting jewellery from Palestinian homes they bombed — killing, and then stealing from the dead | via @OnlinePalEng pic.twitter.com/PoWPCx6A3C
— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) November 25, 2023
