"'Like a video game': Israel enforcing Gaza evacuations with grenade-firing drones"

[moniss]

This is the title to an article from +972 Magazine news site dated 07/10/25. It details an investigation of cheap small drones that can drop grenades and their use to target civilians. The report was based on interviews with IDF soldiers and officers.

We have all heard relentlessly about the orders to evacuate various areas at various times in the Gaza horror. But as the report points out:

"Soldiers testified that these drone strikes are often carried out against anyone entering an area the army has determined is off-limits to Palestinians — a designation that is never demarcated on the ground."

So vague orders and no clear demarcation has lead to a policy by the IDF the soldiers call "learning through blood":

"Two sources used variations of the phrase “learning through blood” to describe the army’s expectation that Palestinians will come to understand these arbitrary boundaries after civilians are killed upon entering the area."

In other words the boundaries are where the dead bodies are. At least in theory. As one soldier noted:

"Because the Palestinians were killed far from where the soldiers were positioned, S. said that their corpses weren’t collected; instead, the army left them to be eaten by stray dogs. “You could see it on the drone footage,” he explained. “I couldn’t bring myself to watch a dog eating a body, but others around me watched it. The dogs have learned to run toward areas where there’s shooting or explosions — they understand it probably means there’s a body there.”

So some soldiers at least have retained some sense of revulsion. Others not so much. According to the report the soldiers and officers in various groups officially report their actions as follows:

"In the reports, all Palestinians killed were listed as “terrorists.” However, S. testified that aside from one person found with a knife and a single encounter with armed fighters, the scores of others killed — an average of one per day in his battalion’s combat zone — were unarmed. According to him, the drone strikes were carried out with the intent to kill, despite the majority of victims being located at such a distance from the soldiers that they could not have posed any threat."

Did the soldiers make these strikes mistakenly and not intending to hit civilians? The soldiers note:

"“It was clear that they were trying to return to their homes — there’s no question,” he explained."

The soldiers note the targeting included children:

"There was a boy who entered the [off-limits] zone. He didn’t do anything. [Other soldiers] claimed to have seen him standing and talking to people. That’s it — they dropped a grenade from a drone.” In another incident, he said, soldiers tried to kill a child riding a bicycle a great distance away from them."

Ron Ben-Yishai, quoted as a contributor to Ynet, is further quoted here:

"Ben-Yishai quoted a military officer who explained that these devices are doing the work of enforcing the army’s expulsion orders, and that the army automatically labels as a terrorist anyone who remains. “A few days ago, we told civilians to evacuate this area,” the officer said, referring to the Gaza City neighborhoods of Al-Daraj, Al-Tuffah, and Shuja’iyyah. “Tens of thousands did move toward central Gaza. So anyone still here can no longer be considered an ‘uninvolved civilian.’”

That term "uninvolved civilian" is crucial in giving cover to the military for the targeting. As the IDF responded to this article:

"Although detailed questions were sent to the IDF Spokesperson, they initially declined to answer them. After publication, a response was sent that does not specifically address the allegations in the article and states: “The IDF categorically rejects the allegations that it is acting intentionally to harm uninvolved people. Army orders explicitly prohibit shooting at uninvolved people. The IDF is committed to international law and allegations of violation of the law and orders will be thoroughly examined by the authorized mechanisms in the IDF.”

So by coming up with their own definitions for "uninvolved civilian" they can carry out such actions and try to shield themselves from responsibility. In other words everyone becomes a target if they say so. How macabre it can get is explained by one of the soldiers:

"S. said that drone fire was directed at people who were walking “suspiciously.” According to him, the general policy in his battalion was that someone who “walks too fast is suspicious because he’s fleeing. Someone who walks too slowly is also suspicious because [it suggests] he knows he’s being watched, so he’s trying to act normal."

So walking now has a criteria applied that makes you a target. But other terms as well have come about that kill civilians:

"Soldiers testified that grenades were also dropped from drones at people who were considered to be “messing with the ground” — a term the army originally used for militants launching rockets, but which over time has expanded to incriminate people for something as simple as bending over."

So that phrase gets used to cover nearly anything:

"That’s the ace: the moment I say ‘messing with the ground,’ I can do anything,” S. explained. “One time, I saw people picking up clothes. They were walking incredibly slowly, skimming the edge of the [off-limits] zone, and stepped 20 meters in to collect clothes from the rubble of a house. You could see that’s what they were doing — and they were shot.”

The use of drones all over the world for decades has been criticized for desensitizing people using them to the reality of their actions. Actually most military establishments talk out of both sides of their mouths on issues like that. But here in Gaza the report notes:

"This technology has made killing much more sterile,” H. said. “It’s like a video game. There’s a crosshair in the middle of the screen, and you see a video image. You’re hundreds of meters away, [sometimes] even a kilometer or more. Then you play with the joystick, see the target, and drop [a grenade]. And it’s even kind of cool. Except this video game kills people.”

Hamas and others as well have used drones as the report notes:

"Hamas has also used explosive drones, both on October 7 and in operations against Israeli forces in Gaza."

At least in the case of the IDF the cheap commercial, non-military drones used with the grenades are described:

"Soldiers most commonly use EVO drones, produced by the Chinese company Autel, which are primarily intended for photography and cost around NIS 10,000 (approximately $3,000) on Amazon. However, with a military-issued attachment known internally as an “iron ball,” a hand grenade can be affixed to the drone and dropped with the push of a button to detonate on the ground. Today, the majority of Israeli military companies in Gaza use these drones."

Outside groups often raise funds for the purchase of these weapons:

"In the first months of the war, Israeli army units received ample donations from the general public, mostly in Israel and the United States. Alongside food and shampoo, drones were among the items that soldiers requested the most."

This funding of soldiers by direct donations is disturbing as well because of the lack of control of who can buy what or be sent what and then use it. As the report notes the appeals are often initiated by the individual soldiers directly:

"Soldiers independently launched crowdfunding campaigns,” L. explained. “Our company received around NIS 500,000 (approximately $150,000) in donations, which we also used to buy drones.” C., another soldier, recalled being asked to sign thank-you letters to Americans who had donated EVO drones to his battalion."

Of course social media is employed as well:

"In a Facebook group named “The Israeli Drone Pilots Community,” many posts request EVO drone donations for units in Gaza. Multiple pages on Headstart (an Israeli crowdfunding startup) were also created to independently raise funds for drone purchases."

The uncontrolled supply of weaponry by direct donation/solicitation to soldiers should be stamped out because as sure as sun follows rain some horrible human being is going to go too far and we could see chemicals or toxins supplied for use. But putting restrictions on groups raising funds for this activity or funding violent squatters in the West Bank is not something that will happen anytime soon and the entire region has a long history of various groups and nations surreptitiously creating and morphing various groups and providing money and getting funds from public appeals while using the money for terror and armed conflict against each other.

So it falls to the military leadership of nations to put an end to this "outside funding" of soldiers. But in a world where the ability to cause death and destruction of others in a more and more detached way is increasing by the day will the military leadership see that someone killing people because they walk too fast or too slow or because they pick up clothes from the ground is furthering desensitizing human beings who are doing the killing? Will they see that leads to the victims of those acts being seen as less than human? Will the leadership see that as this increases so does the expansion of the numbers of people being seen not as human but as numbers or images on a screen?

Will people and their leaders see what the author Peter George feared and laid out in his book "Commander-1" that you may have your group of people who survive and kill "the others" but you will find the label "human" no longer applies to you despite your survival. If we cannot see that a boy on a bicycle all by himself is just that or that someone walking slowly may be doing so because they are extremely dehydrated, starving, dealing with injuries from bombing etc. then there is no claim to the term human. Efficient killers perhaps but not human.

https://www.972mag.com/drones-grenades-gaza-chinese-autel/