Two months before Hamas launched a surprising and unprecedented attack on Israel, the U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon) awarded a contract worth tens of millions of dollars to build facilities for American troops at a secret base in Israel. This secret American base is located in the heart of the Negev Desert, about 32 kilometers from the border with the besieged Gaza Strip, according to the American news site "Intercept." The base, code-named "Site 512," is not new but has come to the forefront during the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
The base features a radar facility that monitors the skies for long-range missiles that might target Israel. However, on October 7, when Hamas launched thousands of rockets, "Site 512" did not detect anything because it focuses on Iran, which is over 1,100 kilometers away, according to Intercept. The base is situated atop Mount Har Keren in the Negev and includes what U.S. records describe as a "life support facility," with military personnel referring to structures resembling barracks for those working at the base.
Despite U.S. President Joe Biden and the White House confirming that there are no plans to send American troops to Israel amid its war with Hamas, the secret military presence of the United States is already established in the country. U.S. documentation regarding contracts and budgets indicates that this presence is clearly increasing. The new facility's contract was not reported previously, and press reports mentioned nothing about it, even though the contract's cost reached $35.8 million, as noted by the site.
Notably, the Pentagon indirectly referred to the new facility in a list of contracts it awarded for various programs in early August. Despite the efforts by the U.S. Department of Defense to conceal the nature of the site, describing it in other records as merely a "global secret project," a review of documents conducted by the American news site revealed that it is part of "Site 512."
Paul Pillar, a former chief analyst in the CIA's counterterrorism program, states that the U.S. treats some things as government secrets, not merely to prevent their discovery by enemies. He added that there are diplomatic and political reasons preventing the U.S. from announcing such things, such as the existence of "Site 512."
A former officer, who does not have specific knowledge of this base, suggested it may be used to support operations in other parts of the Middle East, and acknowledging its presence within Israel would be uncomfortable. The admission of a U.S. military presence in Israel is rare, having occurred only once before this war—in 2017—when the two countries opened a military facility that the government-funded Voice of America referred to as the first American military base on Israeli soil.
