thecradle.co By News Desk
Infamous Pentagon contractors Constellis and Orbis are the front-runners to take over for the Israeli army once the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in north Gaza comes to a halt.
Israel is examining the launch of a “pilot program” that could see US private security firms replace the army in northern Gaza to “accompany food and medicine convoys” for Palestinians who remain in the devastated region, according to a report by Israeli daily Globes.
Among the top competitors for the multi-million dollar contract are Constellis, the direct successor to infamous mercenary company Blackwater, and Orbis, a little-known South Carolina company run by former generals that has worked with the Pentagon for 20 years.
Officials say the pilot program for north Gaza aims to “prevent Hamas or other gangs from taking over the aid trucks and free the IDF soldiers from the dangerous mission.”
In recent weeks, Gaza’s interior ministry established a new police force to deal with groups of bandits and gangs that have been raiding humanitarian aid shipments and blackmailing international organizations in the southern Gaza Strip.
The UN has said these gangs are likely “benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israeli army.
In October, a third US security firm – Global Delivery Company (GDC) – which describes itself as “Uber for warzones” – claimed to be working with another firm to create and manage “humanitarian bubbles” in Gaza.
GDC is run by Mordechai Kahane, an Israeli businessman who worked with Israeli intelligence during the war on Syria to arm extremist groups seeking to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Although no official figure exists about the size of the contracts being offered by Tel Aviv for these mercenary firms, Globes cites Lt. Col. Yochanan Zoraf, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and former advisor on Arab affairs in the Israeli army, as saying the figure will likely reach “billions of shekels per year.”
“These are not companies that will manage the daily lives of the residents,” Zoraf claims, adding that “peripheral responsibility for the defense of [north Gaza] as well as the civil responsibility itself” falls at Israel’s feet.
The former army officer also says Tel Aviv will likely “ask that the US – or an outside party – finance the program.”
On Tuesday, Israel Hayom reported that the pilot program has yet to receive approval from the security cabinet “due to legal difficulties in defining the occupation” based on international law…
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