From the economy of occupation to the economy of genocide, Gaza has been turned into a profiteering ground and a lucrative market for global elites and several multi-national corporations. In the year 2024, the defence budget of Israel rose drastically by 13% to a record $15 billion. Quite interestingly, over half of half the deliveries including missiles, air-defense systems, rockets, satellites, ISR systems, were sold to European countries, demonstrating how multinational military hardware firms profited from Gaza conflict. Gaza is facing a systematic genocide and Israel is constantly indulged in the medieval siege warfare, using starvation as a weapon for suppression and systematic genocide. Israel’s inevitable strikes on the densely populated Gaza strip has caused at least 60,933 causalities and has left 150,027 people wounded. This death troll includes the death of one child every 45 minutes, which statistically means an average killing of 30 children every day. The Western double-standards are glaring. On one side, they are protesting for Ukraine. Whereas on the other hand, they are ignoring, and some are even justifying, the ethnic cleansing being done in Gaza. They are projecting resistance/self-defence as terrorism and are completely ignoring the forceful occupation of Israel in the region. The Arab world seems to be helpless, frogmarched into shackles, and living in a state of perpetual fear, not being able to counterbalance Israel’s hegemonic practices in the region.
A lot of people consider it a war for territorial gains but the dark side of this genocide is shows that Gaza has now being commodified by the global elites! The destruction in Gaza is fueling the profits of defence lobbies, global elites, and military-industrial actors. Quite interestingly, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese has rightly highlighted that the ongoing conflict is not only about war rather how Israel along with complicity from multi-national corporations and elite academic institutions are generating huge sums of money from this mass murder (2025, July 2). She rightly highlighted the term as “the economy of genocide.” It becomes even more triggering that global corporations have very carefully developed the exact blend of a network consisting of military, technology, economics, and academic institutions that feeds off the shedding blood of children in Gaza. Along with a course of systematic oppression by Israel, global companies such as Elbit Systems, Lockheed Martin, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon etc., are providing tangible support to Israel, for suppressing Palestinians. For instance, the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) Israel, had received 747 million Euros under the Horizon Europe program. This is Europe’s core funding program for research and development, and is being used in supporting the Israel’s Population Registry, a tool for systemic suppression by snatching away the property of Palestinians from Gaza. Similarly, multi-national corporations such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have provided $1.2 billion funds for a project named, “Project Nimbus.” These funds will be directly used for advancement in ISR and artificial intelligence infrastructure that with significantly enhance surveillance and military targeting operations in Gaza. (A/HRC/59/23) Furthermore, the Stock Exchange of Tel Aviv has raised to over 44% from the last 21-month Gaza war. This market has accumulated a total of more than $220 billion in gains. This further highlight how financial markets have commodified the war in Gaza. Additionally, there are companies that have directly benefited from the Genocide in Gaza, like Caterpillar Incorporated and the Volvo Group had continuedly supplied heavy machinery to Israel which was being used in mass demolitions across the Gaza strip and the West Bank. This shows how the world kept silently commodifying the war and gained huge sums of capital from this genocide.
From these technological assistances to supply of arms, and logistic aid to critical cloud services for military operations, these corporations have funded millions of dollars to Israel get benefits from this dark economy of genocide. Whereas, international law strictly calls for abstention, and disengagement from businesses that directly or indirectly fuel serious crimes, such as the genocide being done in Gaza. But these corporations have prioritized profit over principles, eroding the core essence of international norms and international humanitarian law. Quite interestingly, universities in Israel are also playing their role by brain washing students by erasing Palestinian history and by justifying the forceful occupation of Israeli forces, in Gaza. Furthermore, reports showcase that the departments of science and technology are intensively indulged in research and development for generating collaborative opportunities for Israel’s military and global arms contractors such as, Elbit Systems, IBM and Lockheed Martin, and so contributing in the production of weapons for ISR, crowd control, urban warfare, and targeted killing. These are the tools that are later tested on Palestinian civilians.
Something that makes this war even more insidious is not actually the level of destruction it has caused rather the transformation it has brought. This war has turned Gaza into a prototype, a lab rat, and a market place for Western powers to experiment their technology and emerging warfare strategies. Israel is taking Gaza as a demolition site, where technologies such as ISR, drones, and tech-driven weapon systems are being tested at the cost of Palestinian blood. It is definitely not just a war rather a greater game that Israel is playing for regional control and profiteering from the commodified Gaza conflict. Worst part of the conflict is that the world, which is structured to punish such barbarity, is silently watching this ruthless genocide with a mixture of paralysis and profit motive. Start-ups and military lobbies in Tel Aviv are facing huge boom, as the footage of Palestinian suffering goes viral. Global reconstruction firms and Western arms supplying companies are benefiting from the demolishing Gaza strip. People of Gaza are now nothing more than replaceable variables in a war-economy equation.
If we do a constructive analysis, Gaza is not merely a mirror for Palestinian suffering but a reality check for the perceived collapse of international humanitarian norms. The silence of global community is clearly the detachment from global norms, and endorsement of Israeli brutality through inertia. The ferocity of Israel is clearly a violation of international humanitarian law and showcase the global priority of profiteering over conscience. The war is not just about muscle-flexing, it is an industry that is being feed on the genocide being done at Gaza. The question here is not whether the world will stop Israel from this mass murder, but will it be able to afford it?
Author: Raja Zark Ullah Khan is a graduate student at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, specializing in Strategic Studies. He is currently working as a Research fellow at the Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), Islamabad. His academic and research interests focus on international relations, strategic stability, emerging technologies, and the deterrence stability in South Asia
