Jabalia, October 31, 2023, Israel bombs a refugee camp, destroying 20 buildings and killing 56 people, including 23 children. Wasi, on October 10 and 22, 2023, the Israeli army bombed areas where it had previously given orders to relocate displaced people, 43 civilians, 19 children, died.
The bombs that killed 32 children and 99 civilians in total were the GBU-32 and GBU-31 inserted into the JDAM kit, a military technology that provides long-range GPS guidance to bombs, making them capable of hitting targets located 72 kilometers away. . These bombs have been installed on Israeli military planes since 2000. The Amnesty International report which denounces this leaves no doubt: “The air attacks were direct attacks against civilians or indiscriminate attacks and must be the subject of a investigated as a war crime. » It seems obvious, bombs clever They killed whoever they wanted to kill.
In the report The armed bank and its co-responsibility in the genocide in Gaza we list nearly 40 cases like those mentioned. Cases of flagrant use of weapons by the Israeli armed forces against the civilian population, with on-site complaints, with images, with field investigations, with testimonies, with official reports in which the use of at least 5 types of weapons is obvious. artillery projectiles, 4 models of bombs and guided missiles, 4 models of military aircraft from which bombings were carried out, a model of a warship and armed land vehicles. All of these cases could be considered war crimes by a court and are only part of all the attacks that killed more than 45,000 civilians, including more than 16,000 boys and girls.
Beyond the direct responsibility of the Israeli army and government, the focus must be on those who provide them.
According to SIPRI data, the main exporters of conventional arms to Israel are the United States and Germany. Regarding the specific cases in which the use of specific weapons which caused the death of the Palestinian civilian population and which may constitute a war crime was identified, we are certain that the United States authorized the export of 12 helicopters in 2023. AH-64A Pache fighter jets and 25 F-15 fighters, both manufactured by Boeing, used in Rafah on June 13, 2024 in attacks on residential buildings, in Gaza City on June 25 2024 in the Shati refugee camp.
This same company exported 4,850 GBU-39 bombs between 2019 and 2022 and between 2015 and 2023 it exported 7,688 JDAM for guided bombs to Israel. All these bombs dropped on the civilian population in Jabalia (May 9 and 31, 2023), in Wasi (October 10 and 22, 2023), in Khan Younis (July 10, 2024), in Al Mawasi (July 13, 2024), in the city of Gaza (August 10, October 25 and December 2, 2023), Lebanon (March 27, 2024), Deir al Balah (May 12, 2023), Al Bureij camp (November 2, 2023), Al Buraq (November 10, 2023 ) and in Rafah ((December/January 2023/24 and 26 May 2024).
Furthermore, the United States exported between 2019 and 2023 up to 477 armored vehicles, the tanks used to enter Gaza, of the Namer model, manufactured by the American Oshkosh Defense, used during the attack on the hospital Al-Shifa on December 7. 2024, when the Israeli army captured dozens of Palestinians, including many civilians, stripped them naked and humiliated them for hours, in what could constitute a violation of international humanitarian law. And they were also identified in August 2024 in the West Bank during the macro military operation with raids on different cities, blocking access to hospitals and other buildings, leaving 27 Palestinians dead and more than a hundred injured.
The main German company for which we have evidence that its weapons have been identified in attacks on civilians is Rheinmetall. In Gaza, in October 2023, tank munitions were used indiscriminately against Palestinians and civilian infrastructure, including medical facilities, humanitarian convoys and civilian shelters, and on December 7, 2023, there was an attack on the rocket against the Lebanese-Palestinian border. in an area where identified journalists were located, leaving one dead and five injured. Israeli tanks use Rheinmetall’s Rh-120 ammunition.
But we must not stop there in the search for responsibility. We have an obligation to point out a few key players to enable the aforementioned arms companies to develop their business, the financial entities. Because the military industry has a debt ratio similar to that of other companies, i.e. 75%. Without funding, these companies would have serious difficulty maintaining production. The role of banks is therefore crucial for the production of weapons. We know that banks that do business with arms companies do so through equity investments, issuance of bonds and promissory notes, capital increases, lines of credit, loans and credit policies, among other products. And we know that there are banks that have financed the companies that manufacture the weapons used to carry out the aforementioned war crimes.
The report Armed banks and their co-responsibility for the genocide in Gaza incorporates updated data from 3,600 financial operations in August 2023 and June 2024 on credits granted to these companies between 2009-2024, bond issuances for the 2021-2023 period and investments. in stocks from 2023-2024. The result is that twelve Spanish financial entities allocated $4 billion to seven of the companies that sold the weapons we know were used to carry out the genocide in Gaza: Boeing, Day & Zimmerman, General Dynamics, Oshkosh Corp , Leonardo, Rheinmetall and MTU Friedrichshafen. Among them, Banco Santander and BBVA stand out, which financed them to the tune of 2,442 and 1,558 million respectively. Caixabank also stands out with 110 million and Bestinver with 65 million. How many victims of the genocide in Gaza are attributable to those who financed the weapons used by the Israeli army?
Let us name those who throw the bombs, those who pull the trigger, those who give the orders, those who deliver the weapons they use, those who manufacture them, those who design them, those who sell them, those who give the orders purchasing and those who finance them. We must be aware that such a volume of military action on multiple fronts, the level of destruction that has taken place in the Gaza Strip and that which could occur in the West Bank and Lebanon by the Israeli armed forces would not be possible without money. We must name the money, which sells the weapons that Israel buys, which finances the State of Israel to maintain its military operations, which supports an economy and a government based on its military competitiveness and the banks which inject money into it. ‘money.
Netanyahu is not a lone madman, he is one more piece in a puzzle of political and military leaders, arms company directors, arms trade policymakers and experts, and banks who benefited from the financing of companies that supply weapons to an army. it is committing genocide. Your bank may be helping to finance a genocide with your money.
