The French daily L’Humanité published on Wednesday, March 20 an investigation detailing how Rabat uses Israeli military technology against the Polisario Front in Western Sahara, which has caused the deaths of nearly a hundred civilians in three years.
“A whole range of machines now crisscross the skies of the liberated territories [part of Western Sahara under control of the Polisario Front], tracking the highly mobile units of the Sahrawi guerrillas without sparing civilians. »
In an article published Wednesday, March 20, the French daily L’Humanité lists the Israeli weapons that Morocco uses in Western Sahara , considered a “non-autonomous territory” by the United Nations.
The question of this former Spanish colony has for decades pitted Morocco, which controls 80% of the territory and proposes an autonomy plan under its sovereignty, against the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, supported by Algiers, who are demanding a self-determination referendum. as recommended by the UN.
In 2020, Rabat launched a military operation against neighboring territory to “put an end to the serious provocations” of the Polisario Front.
For almost four years, the Sahrawis have regularly reported clashes and often announce that they have inflicted human losses on the Moroccan side, never confirmed by the Moroccan authorities. Incidents are regularly reported by Sahrawis, who claim that their land “is confiscated” and their property “burned”.
According to L’Humanité, the military base at Smara airport, a town of more than 66,000 inhabitants under Moroccan control, hit in October by Polisario fire, as well as the Mahbès airfield, enlarged and equipped for these new uses, “are taking off Hermes 900 [strategic reconnaissance drones] and Hermes 450 [tactical type, which can be equipped with air-to-ground missiles], two models developed by the Israeli aircraft manufacturer Elbit Systems”.
“Empty the liberated territories of the nomads who lived there”
In July 2023, the American newspaper The Intercept reported similar information via Federico Borsari, a researcher specializing in unmanned technologies at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
According to the expert, Morocco had 150 vertical take-off and landing drones [including WanderB, ThunderB, and the SpyX kamikaze drone produced by the Israeli BlueBird Aero Systems], three Heron TPs and Harop munitions produced by Israel Aerospace Industries, as well as four Hermes 900 produced by Elbit Systems.
He also specified that Morocco had Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones and Chinese Wing Loong drones, both used for combat purposes.
The Moroccan Air Force also announced to Reuters in 2020 that it would acquire American Predator-B (Q-9B SeaGuardian) drones.
“The crisscrossing of areas under the control of the Polisario Front by these killer aircraft had the effect of emptying the liberated territories of the nomads who lived there: the drones target humans and animals alike and, since 2021, 170 civilians have been affected by their shots, 86 of which were fatal. Two children were killed in these circumstances,” reports L’Humanité.
Since the normalization of relations between Israel and Morocco in 2020, obtained by Donald Trump in exchange for American recognition of the “Moroccanness” of Western Sahara, the two countries have concluded cooperation agreements, particularly in matters of defense.
The then Israeli Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, was received in Rabat with great fanfare in November 2021 for the signing of an “unprecedented” security cooperation agreement – the first of its kind with an Arab country, according to the Israeli side -, aiming in particular to facilitate Morocco’s acquisition of technologies from Israel’s powerful military industry.
With this memorandum of understanding, the defense ministries and armies of the two states can also more easily communicate with each other and share intelligence whereas this type of communication was previously only possible through their respective intelligence services.
In 2023, Shai Cohen, head of the Israeli liaison office in Rabat, announced the opening, by Elbit Systems, of two drone factories in Morocco. The Israeli diplomat indicated that one of the two industrial sites should be installed in Casablanca, without providing further details.
A policy of ethnic cleansing is gradually taking hold,” accuses Abdeslam Omar Lahsen, president of the Association of Families of Sahrawi Prisoners and Disappeared, in the French daily, estimating the number of people affected by displacement at nearly 30,000. forced for three years.
“Barely a few hundred nomads are still resisting. The others had to abandon their herds to join the refugee camps or retreat to Mauritania.
