The Peruvian military’s partnership with Israeli arms manufacturer signals deepening complicity in the Gaza genocide

In the Peruvian Andes, on Pukamoqo hill, stands a 26-foot-tall statue of Jesus Christ, named the Protector of Cuzco. It was a gift given to Cuzqueños by a group of Palestinian refugees who had fled to Peru during World War II, as a symbol of gratitude for the community’s acceptance. The first stone was laid on June 24, 1944, coinciding with Inti Raymi, a Quechua celebration of the sun god Inti. It was the first public Inti Raymi celebration since the Spanish colonial government had outlawed the practice in the late 16th century. It has been celebrated every year since. 

In 2023, both communities– indigenous Peruvians and Palestinians– faced a sharp escalation in violence from the governments that rule them. Between late December 2022 and March 2023, nearly 70 indigenous dissidents were murdered by the Peruvian police and armed forces at protests across the country. As a result, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte would be investigated for genocide and crimes against humanity. For the bloodshed, the public christened her “Dina Asesina.”

Violence against indigenous Peruvians is certainly not unique to Boluarte’s presidency– it is a ubiquitous part of Peru’s history. But this was different, in its scale and its public brutality. It was not since Peru’s Internal Conflict, which took place between 1985 and 2000, that Peruvians had seen carnage like this.

When Israel began its latest genocidal campaign in Gaza, Peru was mostly silent while its neighbors– Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil– made strong statements supporting the Palestinian people. Though the Peruvian government released a statement expressing solidarity with Israel following the October 7, 2023 attack, Boluarte herself has not spoken publicly about the matter.

Peru recognized Palestinian statehood in 2011. Like most of its fellow United Nations member states, Peru regularly votes against Israeli occupation and in favor of humanitarian relief for Palestine. As recently as June 12, 2025, the Peruvian delegation voted in favor of a permanent and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. 

Four days later, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese released a report on the economy of genocide in Gaza, naming Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace as two of the biggest benefactors in the ongoing genocide. Just two days after that, FAME (Fábrica de Armas y Municiones del Ejército,) Peru’s state-owned munitions company, began a private international competition to determine a strategic partner for their artillery systems. The competitors were Israel’s Elbit Systems, Turkey’s Roketsan, and China’s Norinco, with Elbit emerging as the winner on July 14, 2025.

If signed, this contract would undoubtedly make Peru a party to two genocidal crimes– its own and Israel’s. As Albanese wrote, “International partnerships providing weaponry and technical support have enhanced Israeli capacity to perpetuate apartheid and, recently, to sustain its assault on Gaza.” 

The contract is the first of its kind in the region, inspiring celebration in military and business publications in Israel and the Americas. Though the contract is initially valued at $60M USD (212M in Peruvian soles), business publications have highlighted the potential for growth. “This deal marks a strategic expansion of Elbit Systems in Latin America,” wrote Israel Defense. Globes praised Peru as the “exception” among “governments in the region adopting anti-Israeli policies.” 

Given Israel’s history of violent intervention in the region, supplying billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime and Argentina’s military fascist junta during the “Dirty War,” South America’s leftist governments have good reasons to reject partnerships with Israeli businesses. For Elbit, establishing operations in a country surrounded by Palestine’s allies “strengthens [Peru’s] role as a future regional center,” as Army Recognition reported. 

Though coverage has largely focused on the advanced long-range artillery systems, the contract also includes several types of firearms and ammunition, tactical gear, bombs, grenades, drones, surveillance vehicles, and “various weapons.” Perhaps most concerning for Peruvian activists is the cutting-edge surveillance technology that will soon be in the possession of the Peruvian state department.

Elbit’s surveillance technology has been used to surveil migrants at the US-Mexico border and extensively in Palestine. According to the American Friends Service Committee, Elbit drones were used “during its 2014 assault, during which hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank were arbitrarily arrested.” Arbitrary arrests of indigenous dissidents have been one of the tools of suppression used by the Boluarte government and other anti-indigenous administrations in Peru.

While FAME’s competition was ongoing, Boluarte and the Peruvian Congress were working on a new law that grants amnesty to law enforcement, military, and government officials who were involved in Peru’s Internal Conflict. During this time, fighting between the Peruvian government and the Shining Path resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 people. 

Towards the end of the conflict, under the presidency of Alberto Fujimori, 300,000 people were forcibly sterilized. The vast majority of the victims were indigenous. Boluarte’s new law, criticized by human rights groups, ensures that the full extent of the atrocities of the Peruvian government will not be known, and those impacted will never get justice.

The new contract, coinciding with the de facto pardon of those responsible for some of the worst crimes committed against indigenous Peruvians, should raise alarm for the Peruvian press, yet the issue went unmentioned. Peru’s most popular newspaper, El Commercio, has yet to cover the story. Given the paper’s conservative leanings, one might think that they would celebrate the contract’s potential to create jobs and a new international partner.

It wasn’t until almost two weeks after the end of the competition, La República published an article that went into exhaustive detail about the competition and ensuing contract, but did not mention Palestine, Gaza, or Elbit’s role in the ongoing genocide. The newspaper has not published anything about the contract since. The only two local publications that have written about Peru’s forthcoming involvement in the genocide are Hildebrandt and El Salmon.

Elbit Systems has yet to announce the contract on their website. The only official announcement of the contract is on F.A.M.E’s website. It is unclear how Globes, Israel Defense, Army Recognition, and Zona Militar got this information before the local press. Whether the media’s silence is a result of ignorance or active suppression, the consequences of that silence could be disastrous for indigenous Peruvian activists who are uninformed about their government’s new deadly tools. 

Solidarity between indigenous Peruvians and Palestinians predates the establishment of Israel and continues into the present. Now, their respective enemies have become associates in a lucrative economic alliance that shares a goal: the removal of indigenous people from their own land.