Poland Repurposed a Nazi Factory Site to Make TNT to Drop on Gaza

Beyond parody.

Israel would not have been able to decimate Gaza to this extent without the TNT production capacity of Nitro-Chem, which after the Cold War emerged as the largest producer of the explosive among NATO and EU members. During the October War of 1973, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) adopted the U.S.-made Mk 80 series, which features an admixture of aluminum powder to increase the heat and destructiveness of the charge. Israel’s air campaign in Gaza mostly featured the largest bombs in the series—the 1,000-pound Mk 83 and the 2,000-pound Mk 84. By April of 2024, Israeli pilots had detonated around 75,000 tons of Polish-made TNT on the densely populated enclave. In nuclear terms, this is an explosive force equivalent to a 75-kiloton fission bomb—significantly more than twice the combined yield of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Along with Vietnam, the Mk 80 supply chain echoes another dark chapter of history—one closer to the mixing site of its main ingredient. The Nitro-Chem plant is located on the former grounds of one of the biggest arms factories built by the Nazis between 1940 and 1944. The authors of the TNT report note that, during the German occupation, Polish resistance cells repeatedly “infiltrated the plant and carried out acts of sabotage.” No such acts have been reported in recent years, as the TNT used in the Gaza genocide uses roads and train tracks in the vicinity of multiple Holocaust memorials, including the site of a mass grave known as the Valley of Death, and the Potulice Concentration Camp, where an estimated 25,000 prisoners were processed.