The loot includes Soviet tanks, rare French and German rifles from the World Wars, collectible pistols, explosive devices, missiles, launchers, and drones. The IDF gathered this massive haul from Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza—so heavy that soldiers joked their backs were breaking under the weight. But what happens to it all now?  

Ynet tells how one evening in mid-November, Lt. Col. (Res.) Idan Sharon-Katler, deputy commander of the IDF’s War Spoils Unit, convened a debriefing with his counterparts from the intelligence directorate’s parallel unit, the Armament Analysis Division. The room was filled with reservist officers who finally had a chance to sit back, sip their coffee, and reflect with satisfaction on their latest achievement: thousands of seized weapons successfully extracted from southern Lebanon—just before the IDF wrapped up its ground operation and a ceasefire was declared. And that was after tens of thousands of weapons had already been collected from Gaza in the previous year.  

“Let’s set up a spoils collection station at the Quneitra crossing,” Idan, known for his long ponytail, joked. The comment was not only a nod to the fact that the unit hadn’t operated on two battlefronts simultaneously since the Yom Kippur War in 1973 but also turned out to be prophetic. “We all laughed,” he recalled. “We had no idea that Assad’s regime would collapse within a week, and we’d actually have to deal with Soviet tanks and anti-tank missiles from the ‘Pita’ outposts in the Syrian Golan.”