On Sunday, Haaretz newspaper disclosed that the Israeli army is hiring the African asylum seekers for Gaza war in return for permanent residency.
The Israeli newspaper added that the Israeli defense establishment uses the African asylum seekers for war in Gaza, jeopardizes their life, and in return gives them permanent residency status.
Citing unnamed Israeli security sources, the newspaper wrote that these procedures are organized and accompanied by legal advice from security agencies, but the moral aspect of taking in asylum seekers for life-threatening operations has not been discussed at all. According to the same source, "so far none of the African refugees who participated in the Israeli war have been granted citizenship status."
The newspaper confirmed that 3 African refugees were killed in October 7 attack, after which requests were made to volunteer in the Israeli army. At the same time, Israel's security establishment realized that it could take advantage of the desire of asylum seekers to obtain permanent status.
According to the security sources who talked to the newspaper, the Israeli security establishment used these asylum seekers in multiple operations in Gaza war, including those brought in media spotlight.
Haaretz also reported that some army commanders protested this phenomenon, saying it was an abuse of those fleeing war in their own countries, but these dissenting voices within the army were silenced.
Reacting to this Israeli measure, the Hamas movement announced that the hiring of mercenaries from African refugees to fight in Gaza is an attempt to compensate for the massive casualties suffered by the occupation army.
"What the Hebrew media revealed about the recruitment of African refugees by the occupying army to fight in Gaza in exchange for facilitating the right of residence confirms the depth of the moral crisis of this rogue regime," part of Hamas statement read.
This resistance movement called on the international community and international human rights institutions to condemn this crime, which "reflects the behavior of racist gangs", and to take the necessary measures to hold the occupation criminal leaders accountable for gross violations of the laws of war and humanitarian rights.
According to statistics, nearly 30,000 asylum seekers from Africa are living in the occupied territories, most of them are young people, and about 3,500 of them are Sudanese who have a temporary residency status and whose citizenship status has not been confirmed yet.
Haaretz report comes as in December last year, Abu Obeidah, the spokesman of Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced that the Israeli army was using foreign mercenaries in its invasion of Gaza.
Military recruitment is not limited to African mercenaries, and Tel Aviv has also used mercenaries from the US, France, Spain, Ukraine and dozens of countries around the world.
According to war data, between 800 and 1,000 foreign volunteers join the army of this regime every year. In total, there are 4,600 foreign volunteers in the ranks of the Israeli forces, in addition to a large number of dual nationals from around the world, either in active or reserve service.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo on November 15 last year revealed in an interview with a former Spanish officer named Pedro Diaz Flores that he was hired to fight in the ranks of the Israeli army in exchange for receiving a large amount of money.
"I came for the money, they pay well, they provide good equipment, the work is quiet, and the weekly salary is €3,900," he was quoted as saying. "We only provide security support to the Israeli armed forces convoys or teams present in the Gaza Strip. We do not fight directly with Hamas and we do not participate in offensive operations." He stated that he was recruited through a private military company that supports Israel.
In the past 11 months, the Israeli regime has continued its genocidal operation in Gaza, violating all international standards, laws and defying warnings and killing and injuring more than 136,000 Palestinians, most of whom are children and women. Also, massive destruction and unprecedented humanitarian disaster and famine threaten the lives of 2 million Palestinians.
High casualties of army and insubordination of reserve forces
One reason why the countries resort to hiring foreign mercenaries is shortage of manpower, and Israel seems to be no exception.
At the beginning of the war, Tel Aviv officials claimed that more than 360,000 people had been mobilized to go to Gaza, which was several times the number of Hamas forces, but it seems that during this time, the military forces suffered heavy casualties, something forcing the Netanyahu government to hire African mercenaries.
In early September, the Israeli army announced the official statistics of the number of casualties of its soldiers in Gaza war, during which 695 people have been killed so far. The army also released a statement announcing that since the beginning of the Gaza war, 4,357 soldiers and officers were injured, of which 2,232 were injured during ground operations, but this is not all the truth.
The Israeli regime always censors the real number of its casualties to cover up its failures in fight against resistance forces. Israeli media reported that the number of casualties is way larger than what is published as official data.
The newspaper Yedioth Aharonot recently reported that the Israeli army has ordered hospitals not to publish any statistics of the dead and wounded without coordination.
In the first months of the war, the director of the Israeli military cemetery revealed that an Israeli soldier was buried every hour, and with this calculation, the number of Israeli casualties in the Gaza war is much higher than the government's claim. Because if the casualties of the soldiers were less, it would not be necessary to hire mercenaries and offer them high payments.
In addition to the massive casualties, the Israeli officers and reserve forces are reluctant to go to Gaza, and the reports published by some soldiers in the Hebrew media show that they are afraid of confrontation with the Palestinian fighters.
The mass resignation of hundreds of army officers indicates that the Israelis are afraid of being killed or injured in Gaza and are not ready to go to the slaughterhouse just for the personal and political interests of their hardline leaders.
Additionally, one of the reasons that forces the Netanyahu government to hire mercenaries is the shadow of threats from several fronts against the occupied territories. Although the Israeli army is focused on the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas, it is also dealing with serious challenges on other fronts.
Conflict with Hamas in Gaza, tension with Lebanon's Hezbollah in the northern front and presence in the West Bank have exhausted the Israeli army.
On Saturday, the Israeli army announced once again that "we do not have enough forces to fight on several fronts at the same time. We don't know how this situation will end." For this reason, Tel Aviv intends to fill part of the gap caused by shortage of forces.
On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of settlers around Gaza and the Lebanese border have been displaced from their homes in the past 11 months, and Netanyahu's government has not been able to manage this number of displaced population. Some of these displaced people could fight alongside the occupying forces in Gaza, but due to their chaotic social situation, the army avoids using them on the battlefield. Therefore, resorting to Africans is the only way available to the hardline government to avoid further defeat against the resistance forces.
Reverse migration
In addition to the desertion of military service in the battlefields and massive casualties in Gaza, another crisis has plagued the Israeli regime and caused shortage of manpower, and it is the crisis of reverse migration from the occupied territories, which has been on the rise over the past year.
Israeli media reported later in August that 1 million Israelis fled from occupied Palestine and returned to their home countries, especially Europe and America, following Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.
Results of the survey by the Israeli Center CJI showed that 29 percent of Israelis are thinking about fleeing from the occupied territories and 71 percent of them are not optimistic about their living conditions in the coming months.
According to this survey, 50 percent of Israelis were injured in the war or know someone around them who was injured. This number includes reservists, and in their absence, the army's work will be more difficult to continue fighting on different fronts.
Certainly, the fleeing of 1 million settlers from the occupied territories is seen a large figure given the Israeli population of 7 million and can have a negative impact on this regime in various economic and social fields. Reverse migration affects two main sectors in Israel, the first being the labor market and the second being the military sector.
Recruiting Africans for war is interesting in its own way and shows that the experienced foreign militants that are battleground-tested do not tend to fight for the Israeli occupation.
At present, there are thousands of foreign mercenaries who are fighting in Ukraine for low payments. Still, they do not fight in the Israeli occupation army even for high payments, since the Israeli leaders who reek with racism have proven that only life of first-class citizens matters for them and African asylum seekers and other second-claas citizens are just cannon fodder that are sacrificed for security of Zionist citizens at critical times.
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