THE Israeli military’s ‘Loot Unit’ has seized massive amounts of cash, gold and weaponry, among other items, since the start of the war on Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, according to the Israeli daily Ynet.
‘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’ from ‘enemy territory’. In one case, the unit seized NIS (shekels) four million (around $1 million) from a private home.
The stolen money is counted in bank machines which the military specially purchased for the looting unit, alongside scales for checking the value of gold bars and jewellery seized in Lebanon and Gaza.
The cash and gold are transferred in secured vehicles to the Ministry of Defence’s main cash desk section in The Kirya in Tel Aviv.
There, a recount is carried out and the stolen loot deposited in the Bank of Israel for confiscation.
So far, more than NIS 100 million (around $28 million) in cash from Gaza and Lebanon has 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.
The Israeli news outlet revealed 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 familiarised 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 missiles, weapons, and crates of ammunition back to Israel on our backs at night, but it quickly became too much. It really broke our backs. And our guys are tough,’ he said
Over 500 people, most of them in the reserves, serve in the Loot Unit under the Israeli military’s central supply centre 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.
Lieutenant Colonel Sharon-Katzler, who is part of the unit responsible for looting, said there was an urgency to optimise the stolen items for use by Israeli forces.
‘For example, after Hamas’s invasion into the western Negev on 7th October, we studied the explosive devices they used and reinforced our tanks and APCs accordingly,’ he said.
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 last 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 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.
IOF rampage in West Bank
The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) continued to carry out demolitions, arrests, and attacks on Palestinian citizens in different areas of the West Bank and east Jerusalem on Sunday and yesterday.
According to local sources, on Sunday, the IOF demolished a date processing plant in the north of Jericho, although its owner was still trying to extract a court order to halt the demolition measure.
The IOF also demolished a commercial store and a number of public facilities in the same area in Jericho under the pretext they’d been built without a proper construction licence.
In Jenin refugee camp, the IOF set fire to several Palestinian homes and launched a teargas attack on citizens on the outskirts of the camp, injuring an infant.
Israeli forces also withdrew from the al-Rabi building after causing extensive damage to its apartments and repositioned themselves in several areas of the al-Jaberiyat neighbourhood in Jenin camp.
During its ongoing military campaign in Jenin camp, the IOF has demolished about 498 homes and facilities either completely or partially, not to mention the widespread destruction of infrastructure.
They also killed and injured dozens of citizens during their operation into Jenin camp, which started about 42 days ago.
In Nablus, on Sunday night and into yesterday, a large number of Israeli troops and two bulldozers stormed the eastern area of the city and spread out into in its streets to secure the access of extremist Jewish settlers to what they call ‘Joseph’s Tomb’.
In Tulkarm, the Israeli army continued its destruction campaign in Nur Shams refugee camp.
Since Sunday morning, the IOF has demolished over 50 apartments and forced seven families to leave their homes at gunpoint in Nur Shams camp.
In east Jerusalem, the Israeli police arrested many young men in the Old City and summoned others for interrogation.
About 75 Palestinian citizens were able to perform the Isha and Tarawih prayers on the third night of the holy month of Ramadan despite the Israeli entry and movement restrictions in the Holy City.
Israeli plain-clothes police officers reportedly kidnapped a Palestinian citizen from the east Jerusalem district of Issawiya.
Israeli settlers loot livestock
Israeli settlers, backed by occupation forces, stormed the town of Deir Dibwan, east of Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank on Saturday evening, looting hundreds of livestock in yet another act of state-backed aggression against Palestinians.
According to news agency Wafa, settlers, shielded by Israeli soldiers, stole around 800 sheep, three horses, two donkeys, and water tanks belonging to Palestinian residents Nayef Manasra and Abdul Halim Awada.
Later, Israeli forces raided the town, broke into the home of Issa Khader Yassin, and confiscated footage from his home’s security cameras.
Hordes of extremist Jewish settlers wreaked havoc on croplands in the northern Jordan Valley and attacked a Bedouin community in Jericho, south of the occupied West Bank, on Sunday.
According to local sources, settlers deliberately grazed their sheep on Palestinian-owned cultivated fields in al-Farisiya hamlet in the northern Jordan Valley, causing extensive damage to crops.
It was not the first time settlers have released their sheep into swathes of agricultural land in this area.
Every year, settlers destroy hundreds of dunums of agricultural land belonging to local residents in the northern Jordan Valley.
In a separate incident, a group of settlers stormed the Bedouin community of Arab al-Malihat in the northwest of Jericho, causing panic among the families living there. No one was reportedly hurt in the settler raid.
