Foreign fighters have flocked to Israel to assist the Israeli Defense Forces amid the war in Gaza. That’s according to a bombshell report published in a major Spanish newspaper late last week citing claims by an infamous merc.
“We are in charge of security at checkpoints and access control points at the border between Gaza and Jordan. There are many PMCs [private military contractors, ed.] here and they share in the work. Typically, they have guarded border terminals between Eliat and Aqaba,” Pedro Diaz Flores, a Spanish national who previously fought as a merc in the ranks of Ukraine’s notorious neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, told the paper.
“They pay very well, they offer good equipment and the work is calm,” Flores added, saying he came to Israel for the money. “It’s 3,900 euros per week, not counting additional missions.”
The fighter stressed that so far, apart from border security missions, foreign fighters have been tasked only with “providing security support to arms convoys or troops,” and do not “fight Hamas directly” or take part in assault operations in Gaza.
The details of Flores’ story have been challenged, with one Spanish outlet accusing him of doctoring photos of his “work” in Israel. An IDF spokesperson assured that the Israeli military has “no knowledge of this case.”
“Nobody knows who he is. We are an orderly army. This is a lie,” the spokesperson said.
The merc’s social media account featuring photos of his alleged exploits in Israel has also been wiped.
True or not, Flores’ claims join a bevy of speculation on social media over the past month about the alleged transfer of battle-hardened soldiers of fortune from Ukraine to the crisis raging in the Middle East, where the pay seems better and conditions easier.
According to a recent Sputnik investigation, foreign mercs in Ukraine make just 750-3,000 euros per month, often have to buy their own equipment, and have to fight the regular Russian Army, which enjoys air, artillery and intelligence superiority, unlike the mostly small arms-equipped Hamas. Mercs in Ukraine have reported horrific casualties among their ranks, described witnessing war crimes, and reportedly have started turning on one another over money and petty personal squabbles in recent months as casualties mount and conditions worsen.
Israel has assured that it can handle the conflict with Hamas independently. Washington similarly stressed last month that direct US combat support for Israel was “off the table,” and that “the Israelis have made…very clear that they don’t want foreign troops on their soil.” Washington doubled down on this stance last week, assuring that the additional US troops being deployed in the Middle East “will not go to Israel.”
1 November 2023, 20:55 GMT
Palestinians have disputed these assertions, alleging that the US is not only supporting Israel militarily, but has put boots on the ground in Gaza. Last month, former Pentagon advisor Douglas Macgregor reported that US and Israeli special ops forces had attempted a joint raid into Gaza to free hostages, but that they were decimated “and took heavy losses.”