A problem with my attempts to research and write on the global arms trade, about the worlds-ending salvo manufactured a few miles from my house, is that teasing apart this web of imperial war machinery is an itch I can’t scratch. In this instance, I begin with an object, an Israel Weapons Industry (IWI) “light” machine gun. But I find myself exponentially more astounded by how the circuits, flows, logistics of munitions manufacture, primarily in the interest of unending “defense” contracts that feed insatiable settler colonial conquest, infests every continent and connects every community in the interest of profit maximization–vis a vis land dispossession and carceral capture. Put otherwise: abolishing zionism quite literally means a reordering, a co-re-imagining, of the entire globe. 

The Flood of the Free, Toufan al-Ahrar, is the multi-stage prisoner exchange between the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Qassam); negotiations throughout this near-19 months (and counting) long genocidal campaign against the land of Palestine and its people.[1] The ceremonies in Gaza, as reported by Samidoun and across social media, included remarkable pageantry such as massive banners, decorations, and unexpected public displays of affection. 

Excitement aside, what foremost caught my attention was Qassam fighters showing off an array of weapons seized from IOF soldiers; in particular, one camera zoomed into a “Negev Machine Gun,” labeled neatly and prominently so. 

The weapon itself is nothing unordinary (that is, if we consider the global proliferation of military-grade assault rifles as commonplace in communities, in and beyond “the battlefield”), but let’s expand on this geography of a gun:

The “Negev” is manufactured in several models by IWI–as they tout, it is: “a robust and reliable Light Machine Gun with powerful target acquisition and accurate performance. Deployed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Negev’s semi-automatic features empower its operators with safer Close Quarter Battle (CQB).” This gun is but a piece in a much larger puzzle of ruination; dispossession, displacement, ethnic cleansing.

Al-Nakba Al-Mustamirra

The company, founded in 1933, was formerly the Magen division of Israeli Military Industries Ltd. (IMI) owned by the State of Israel, until it was privatized and renamed as IWI in 2005. Sometimes referred to as “Ta’as” (Ta’asiya Tzvait in Hebrew for “military industry”), it was elemental to the clandestine arms industry of Mandatory Palestine as zionist settlement increased ahead of the Nakba. We can save the story of hidden factories and weapons testing (on the historically Palestinian villages Rantiya, al-Mirr (Mahmudiya) and Fajj, amongst scores more), as well as Histadrut/World Zionist Organization infrastructural projects as precursor to the modern-era hyper-militarized, apartheid segregation and occupation across Palestine for another time. As goes for Ta’as’s development of various mortars, mines and grenades–some as replicas of British technologies–deployed on Palestinians during the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt and 1948 Nakba. 

For decades, these IMI/IWI weapons were manufactured in Ramat HaSharon (originally “Ir Shalom”–ironically, in Hebrew, “City of Peace”). Just north of what’s known as Tel Aviv, Ramat HaSharon occupies the Palestinian land al-Jammasin al-Sharqi. In 2017, IWI relocated its headquarters and operations to Kiryat Gat–a zionist settlement in the Naqab. To underscore, the Naqab, or Diar Be’er al-Saba, is insistently and violently renamed as “the Negev” by colonizers. 

But the Negev assault rifle is not the only grotesque appropriation/concurrent ruination of place; also aggrandized on their social networks and promotional materials are the Carmel (see: Umm al-Kheir), Jericho, and Galil (see: tahweed al-jalīl).[2] IWI’s “Masada” series are 9mm caliber striker-fired pistols that steal their namesake[3] from the isolated rock plateau in Bariyat al-Khalil–a fortress overlooking the Dead Sea, purportedly built by Herod the Great in 37 and 31 BCE. We haven’t the space for millennia of archaeological and epigraphic discoveries, though folklore and the “Masada Plan” are all integral to zionist mythology of both inhabiting and insatiably conquering Palestine. [4]

But IWI’s reach is far more wide-ranging than the Naqab, or even the worldwide sites where soldiers abuse these technologies. As boasted in their “Our Story”:

The intensive and continuous use of IWI’s product by the IDF and worldwide militaries such as Chile, Colombia, Georgia, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Portugal, Thailand, Ukraine, Vietnam and many more, enable the company to continue to innovate new products and optimize existing models. All of our weapon systems are produced and assembled in compliance with the most stringent military (MIL-STD) and ISO 9001.2008 standards.

IWI US, Inc., a subsidiary of IWI, operates a manufacturing facility in Middletown, Pennsylvania, USA. And all of them are nested within SK Group–a “privately held technology and innovation holding company, founded by Samy Katsav, specializing in global frontline defense, para-military solutions, marine infrastructures and property development,” similarly headquartered in the Kiryat Gat settlement. Other SK Group members include Israel Shipyards Ltd., Israel Shipyards Port, Camero (“A world leading pioneer in innovative Sense-Through-The-Wall solutions”), Uni-Scope Optical Systems Ltd., and Elvo (a “historical partner of the Greek Army and state authorities…”). 

Ostensibly, SK Group is a gaggle of munitions manufacturers in a trenchcoat. Israel Shipyards announced that in collaboration with the Israeli Defense Ministry, they will soon begin production on five new “Reshef” warships: [5]

According to Naval News, Israel Shipyards will be working with an American shipyard subcontractor, which will supply the program with hull modules fabricated in the United States. This satisfies the American-built requirement of the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, allowing Israel to draw on its annual U.S. defense funding grant to cover a portion of the vessels’ cost. The name of the yard was not disclosed, nor the U.S. cost contribution.

Of the many chilling bits about Camero, founded in 2004, is this company’s creation as the Second Intifada wore on. Its ultra-wideband imaging (UWB): 

See Through Walls’ Xaver™ family of products provide real time information on multiple stationary and moving objects concealed behind walls – providing operators with unprecedented situational awareness and operational advantage, utilizing unique pulsed based UWB micro-power radar technology.

During Operation Defense Shield, Ariel Sharon and IOF commander Aviv Kokhavi ordered troops to “walk through walls” in Nablus and throughout the West Bank:

We took this micro-tactical practice [of moving through walls] and turned it into a method, 

and thanks to this method we were able to interpret the whole space differently!… I ordered my troops: Friends! This is not for your consideration! There is no way of moving otherwise! If until now you were used to moving along roads and sidewalks, forget it!

From now on we all walk through walls!

Camero technologies–utilized in military and law enforcement applications brag: “…the system offers a first of its kind capability to map the general layout of the room behind the wall and the needed sensitivity to detect non-moving live targets.” Headquartered in the Kfar Netter settlement (the occupied Palestinian villages of Ghabat Kafr Sur, Bayyarat Hannun, and Khirbat Bayt Lid), Camero’s site is nearby… Elbit Systems, Netanya. Now, Elbit is headquartered in Haifa–but in addition to these two sites, other facilities across occupied Palestine include Holon and Ramat HaSharon. Elbit Systems of America and its subsidiaries are also operational in Texas, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Florida. Elbit subsidiaries have a massive footprint across the UK–necessitating direct action in an attempt to cease their operations–and for universities, companies and communities to divest from deathmaking. 

In November 2018, Elbit acquired IMI for a purchase price of approximately $495 million and an additional payment of approximately $27 million contingent upon IMI meeting performance goals. Said Bezhalel Machlis, Elbit Systems President & CEO: “Elbit Systems has a proven track record of successfully performing major acquisitions, and I am convinced that this acquisition will be beneficial for Israel’s economy, for both companies’ employees and customers and for our shareholders.” Through mergers and acquisitions–arms dealers, software developers and transnational technology platforms are concentrating power, manufacturing, code work and hasbara to concretize their dominance in the world’s ordering and bordering.  Reminder: the unfettered global flows of weapons systems and surveillance technologies are never about “protection”… every move, contract, policy & procedure, every war–is for the shareholders’ bottom lines. 

Learning from Palestine Action:

As we know, all struggles are connected because colonial subjects worldwide are 

oppressed by a minority elite who spread their tactics of domination far and wide. Elbit’s business model is this: after testing their products on Palestinians, they sell these technologies on to fuel imperialism elsewhere. Their drones have not only been deployed by British military on border operations, but are used by the EU’s militarised border agency Frontex. The same technologies outfitting Israel’s apartheid wall run along the US’ border wall with Mexico, and are used for monitoring indigenous lands. Elbit drones have been purchased in major volumes by India, in turn deploying them in violent military campaigns perpetuating the repression of Kashmiri populations.

Why we dip and dive through this economic ecosystem of hyper-militarization vis-a-vis worlds-ending technologies and damages to fragile ecologies is manifold; to better understand how the entirety of Palestine is occupied–there is no demarcation between “‘48 Israel”, “the West Bank” and Gaza. Its people, its land, are one–from the river to the sea. To uphold and reproduce this zionist settler colonial carving of territory is to heed their borders. The weapons and surveillance mechanisms are researched, developed, field-tested for nearly a century on Palestinians and their land–and are exported/circulated worldwide to cause incalculable suffering on Indigenous, racialized, and precarious communities solely for profiteering and concurrent land/resource theft. It is our charge to take action, now, in and across these geographies of circulation and struggle.[6]

Footnotes

[1] Of utmost importance to note is that while many Palestinian captives have been liberated during the “hostage exchanges,” they bear scars of substantial, horrific abuse–compounded by the IOF’s ongoing, barbaric “ceasefire” violations, further annihilating the land and its people. According to Addameer, there are currently (as of April 2025) upwards of 9,500 Palestinian political prisoners–including 350+ children detainees–in IOF prisons and detention centers.

[2] In addition to these purloined cartographies, IWI also manufactures the Tavor assault rifles and Uzis. Tavor guns were used extensively in the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead, when the IOF massacred nearly 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Dozens of militaries worldwide both utilize and produce Tavor guns under license. The Uzi submachine gun was first used by the IOF in 1954 and has since been exported to over 90 countries and used extensively by colonial armies such as Rhodesia and the Belgian Armed Forces. All merchant mariners of the Zim Integrated Shipping line are trained in the use of, and issued, the Uzi.

[3] Thievery never limited in the zionist settler colonial imaginary… see also: Masada Armour. 

[4] For example, IOF commander-then Chief of General Staff Moshe Dayan initiated swearing-in ceremonies on top of Masada for soldiers who completed basic training.

[5] “Reshef,” an alternate spelling of Canaanite deity “Resheph”–a god associated with war and plague.

[6] Chua, Charmaine, and Kai Bosworth. “Beyond the Chokepoint: Blockades as Social Struggles.” Antipode 55, no. 5 (2023): 1301–20. doi:10.1111/anti.12943.