When Muin Al-Hatto returned to Gaza with her children in October 2025, a deadly surprise awaited them at their home. A one-ton aerial bomb, which had penetrated the roof and ceilings, was lodged in the living room wall. Thanks to the unexploded bomb, it was possible to determine that the bomb dropped by the Israeli Air Force was a Mk 84 bomb, manufactured at the General Dynamics plant in Texas in January 2025.
The Mk 84 penetrates up to 3.5 meters of concrete, and its explosion removes several tons of earth. If it had detonated, it would have left a crater several meters wide in the house, and no one within a radius of several hundred meters would have had a chance of survival. It was this weapon that became one of the primary tools of the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, the confirmed death toll currently exceeding 70,000.In light of the findings of the report "The Missing Ingredient: Polish TNT," it is almost certain that the bomb contained Polish TNT. The report's authors indicate that TNT shipments from Nitro-Chem in Bydgoszcz to the American arms industry enabled the bombing of Gaza on an unprecedented scale, making Poland a key, albeit secondary, actor in the genocide.
Genocide with American Bombs
The Mk 84 is the heaviest general-purpose aerial bomb used by NATO countries and their allies, including Israel. Manufactured exclusively in the United States since the Vietnam War, it has been used in the Persian Gulf, Yugoslavia, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and repeatedly in Gaza.
Between October 2023 and August 2024, the Israeli Air Force dropped approximately 50,000 bombs, rockets, and missiles on the Gaza Strip. Over 30,000 of these were heavy Mk 84 bombs, often lacking guidance systems and dropped blindly.
In one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, this meant massive civilian casualties and the systematic destruction of living conditions. Over 95% of schools and 84% of healthcare facilities were destroyed. Bombs fell hundreds of times in the immediate vicinity of hospitals. In October 2023, in the Jabalia camp, several Mk 84s killed at least 126 people, including dozens of children. In the al-Mawasi "humanitarian zone," the simultaneous drop of several Mk 84 bombs led to a massacre, some of the victims remaining unidentified.
Gaza - Hiroshima, Poland - Congo
Researchers from the University of Bradford estimate that in the first year of the bombing, Israel dropped approximately 70,000 tons of TNT equivalent on Gaza - an energy comparable to many times the energy of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The US nuclear program also relied on a global supply chain of raw materials. Uranium came from Belgian mines in colonized Congo. In today's weapons system, Poland plays a similar role as a raw material source, and Nitro-Chem is a key link in this chain.
The state-owned company is the largest producer of TNT in the European Union and the only NATO factory certified to produce TNT for military purposes. Approximately 90% of production is destined for the US market, which has lacked its own production capacity since the 1980s. Nitro-Chem's collaboration with General Dynamics, based primarily on the Mk 84 program, has been ongoing since at least 2016. By the end of 2023, Poland had exported approximately 50,000 tons of TNT to American defense companies.
Between October 2023 and July 2024 alone, the United States transferred at least 14,000 Mk 84 bombs based on Polish TNT to Israel. In February 2025, the Israeli government requested another 35,500 - a number comparable to Gaza's current consumption. For the American defense industry and its suppliers, genocide has become a sustainable business model. Nitro-Chem's latest contract, signed in April 2025, was worth $310 million.
Ecocide on the Periphery
The neocolonial analogy between Gaza and Hiroshima also has an environmental dimension. In the Congo, uranium mining led to the permanent contamination of land and water, the costs of which were borne by local communities. The contemporary arms supply chain replicates this pattern in a different geography.
TNT is carcinogenic, and most Western countries have phased out its production. In Poland, TNT production is associated with the emission of toxic "red" and "yellow" waters. Supreme Audit Office (NIK) inspections revealed discharges into the Vistula River, and journalistic investigations revealed illegal landfills where thousands of tons of this waste were dumped by the garbage mafia. Chemical production in Legnów, Bydgoszcz, has been ongoing since World War II, making this area one of the most industrially contaminated in Europe.
In Gaza, the bombings destroyed water and agricultural systems, and the detonations left behind tens of millions of tons of rubble contaminated with heavy metals and explosive residue. Ecocide is not a side effect of war, but the logical consequence of a system in which land and people become disposable resources, secondary to geopolitical and financial interests.
A Leaky Security Umbrella
The report can be read as a study of Poland's peripheral role in global military capitalism, where security is not guaranteed but conditioned by obedience. According to the cited media, this topic is particularly sensitive: the sale of TNT is supposed to be the "price" for maintaining the American security umbrella, the illusory nature of which has been clearly exposed by Donald Trump's administration. The irony is that the American arms industry is dependent on Polish production, not the other way around.
The effects of this asymmetry were already visible in 2023. The offensive on Gaza coincided with Ukraine's artillery collapse. The firepower ratio at that time was approximately 1:5 in Russia's favor, Avdiivka and Marinka were wiped out, and any chance of a counteroffensive was dashed. Despite this, some of the 155mm shells loaded with Polish TNT from October 2023 onward officially intended for the defense of Ukraine were diverted to Israel and used as a tool for the forced displacement of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
This is an example of political calculations calculated on the basis of real human lives in various parts of the world implemented not in the abstract, but through very specific production decisions, contracts, shipments, and resource allocation. It is at this level production decisions and material flows that this system becomes vulnerable to disruption.
Complicity and Co-Responsibility
Poland appears to have no control over how and against whom the weapons produced with our participation are used or rather, it does not want to. The purpose of the Polish TNT is an open secret, underlying the Polish government's political denial of genocide. Meanwhile, international law imposes an obligation on states to prevent the crime of genocide. The Arms Trade Treaty requires the blocking of arms transfers including components and materials if there is a risk of their use for this purpose.
The widespread knowledge of Israel's use of Mk.84 bombs makes the delivery of these weapons not a neutral trade but a political decision contrary to the foundations of the post-war legal order. The Joe Biden administration's brief suspension of the delivery of 1,800 bombs during the Rafah offensive reversed a few months later by the Donald Trump administration showed that even Washington was aware of the scale of this risk, but interests prevailed over the appearance of humanitarianism.
Poland's complicity is part of an offensive led by powerful actors Israel, the United States, and Russia against the system of international law. Institutions meant to uphold these norms - such as the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and UN commissions of inquiry - are being neutralized or openly attacked. In their place, Trump's "Peace Council" has emerged, trading access to the negotiating table and tempting them with a share of the profits from the international occupation of Gaza. This does not absolve minor actors like Poland of responsibility; on the contrary, it demonstrates how much the global system of violence relies on their tacit cooperation.
Social Embargo on Palestine
Since October 2023, we have witnessed genocide broadcast live on social media. The scale of the crime is well documented, and declared opposition to Israel's actions - including in Poland - is widespread. Despite this, knowledge and outrage have not translated into real policy change by states supporting the Israeli war machine. The deluge of images of atrocities does not mobilize effective opposition - it paralyzes it. The problem isn't a lack of information or "insufficient awareness," but rather a structural powerlessness in the face of a system resistant to moral appeals, resolutions, and rulings from international institutions. Human rights discourse has once again proven effective in describing and analyzing violence, but ineffective in stopping it. The failure of institutions, as is often the case, shifts responsibility to grassroots movements.
The report, "The Missing Ingredient: Polish TNT," stems from the premise that war cannot be waged without logistics. Transport, ports, warehouses, and factories are the backbone of military violence, but also its bottlenecks. For years, the report's authors have linked investigations into the arms industry with the practices of the People's Embargo for Palestine campaign. Their actions condemn the complicity of countries such as the US, Canada, Turkey, and European states, and are actually disrupting war logistics: from port workers refusing to unload weapons, through the withdrawal of logistics companies, to the closure of ports to military shipments, resulting in weeks-long delivery delays.
The social embargo is not a moral imperative here, but a practice of real pressure. Movements such as Workers for a Free Palestine and Labor for an Arms Embargo employ long-term organizing in their daily practice: building union coalitions and international coordination of activities - not only among dockworkers and transport workers, but also among cultural and educational workers. This is the starting point for a strategy based on proven know-how, not symbolic, one-time gestures.
Realizing how deeply and tangibly our hands are drenched in the blood of Palestinians can initially lead to a sense of hopelessness. It can also become a moment of breaking away from the role of passive observer from a peripheral state - because the belief that "it's not up to us" has always been a convenient lie. You can read the People's Embargo For Palestine coalition reports here: https://www.embargoforpalestine.com/reports
Those interested in the coalition's activities are encouraged to contact us: embargo_teraz@proton.me
and follow us: instagram.com/embargo_teraz
A-TAK No. 20
https://federacja-anarchistyczna.pl/2026/04/27/polski-trotyl-zabija-palestynczykow-o-raporcie-brakujacy-skladnik-polski-trotyl-i-spolecznym-embargo-dla-palestyny/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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