Israel’s killer cranes in Gaza
JVL Introduction
Nearly all the Palestinians in Gaza are squeezed into 40% of the Gaza Strip, which was the most crowded place in earth even when Palestinians had access to nearly 100% of it. The people of Gaza now live amidst tents and the rubble of homes destroyed by the Israeli army. They have been displaced countless times and continue to suffer harsh conditions, extreme poverty, and deplorable living circumstances due to a lack of basic necessities, limited humanitarian aid entering through the crossings, the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip, and the ongoing Israeli atacks. They are traumatised and have lost so much; family, friends, homes, schools, Mosques, Churches. Gaza has the highest levels of child amputees in the world. We must never forget what has been done – and what is still being done.
And yet Israel manages to inflict further hell on the people of Gaza; the “war” has not stopped, it seems merely to have slowed down. Since the announcement of the “ceasefire” in October 2025, close to 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.
Now cranes have been erected in Gaza so that people in their tents are not only subject to constant surveillance but also random gunfire. Tamer Nahed, a Gaza-based journalist, said the cranes “fire randomly and almost continuously at tents, streets, and exposed neighbourhoods”.
Meanwhile our governments act as though the ceasefire was a reality and close their eyes and continue to be complicit in the genocide.
This article was originally published by New Arab on Sat 20 Jun 2026. Read the original here.
Civilians in Gaza reportedly under fire from 'killer cranes' deployed by Israel
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said 23 military cranes equipped with machine guns and cameras have been deployed inside the Gaza Strip
Israel’s military has deployed almost two-dozen military cranes in Gaza to launch attacks and conduct surveillance operations, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.
Researchers at the rights monitor said they had documented cases of the cranes being used to fire on civilian areas, resulting in deaths and injuries.
The cranes, some of which are operated remotely, are also equipped with cameras and are used to surveil the population.
PCHR said their use is additional evidence of a “systematic policy aimed at undermining the basic survival of the civilian population and creating a coercive environment that repeatedly displaces the population”.
The cranes have been set up at 23 locations behind the so-called yellow line, which separates Israel-occupied Gaza from the rest of the territory, PCHR said.
Tamer Nahed, a Gaza-based journalist, said the cranes “fire randomly and almost continuously at tents, streets, and exposed neighbourhoods”.
Three people, including a five year old girl, were killed by the fire earlier this week, he wrote on X.
Israeli forces continue to regularly conduct attacks across Gaza, defying the October ceasefire agreement that was supposed to bring an end to the assault.
Gaza health authorities say more than 1,000 people have been killed and another 3,165 others injured since the agreement came into force on 10 October.
At least four people were reportedly killed in a new round of strikes on Thursday. Medics said an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in Gaza City killed three people. Another was killed by Israeli forces in central Gaza.
The latest attacks came after mediators met in Cairo to discuss Donald Trump’s roadmap to end the war, which involves Israel’s withdrawal and Hamas’s disarmament.
Trump’s Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov, has been in negotiations with the Palestinian group about decommissioning its weapons.
Since October 2023, Israel’s genocidal assault has killed at least 73,018 people and wounded 173,273 others.
I wonder what their thoughts are, their emotions [if any] as they take up their firing [machine guns!] positions. Did they volunteer? Do they wear coal scuttle helmets with Ich Dien emblazoned on the forehead? Are they proud of themselves, at peace with themselves? When they’re on home leave, do they share their experiences with family and friends? What reaction do they get, what reaction do they expect, when they tell people what they do to protect the Fatherland?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Nama_genocide#Historiography
This reeks of the German massacres of the Herero and Nama in Namibia.
“This bold enterprise reveals in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.
— German official history Grawe, Lukas (2019). “The Prusso-German General Staff and the Herero Genocide p. 606
There’s recently been a steady drip-drip of recorded documentary evidence of the atrocities committed by the Israelis both before and after the Nakba. Nothing should surprise us now. But somehow, this is BEYOND THE PALE (pun intended]. Quite apart from the physical effects – injury, death, disablement – of this ‘new front’, it must have a palpable psychological impact 24/7 on all those trapped in this field of fire. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Sleep, Fetch water… this is naked, unabashed, shameless hate-filled cruelty. Israel has lost its soul. And it cares not a jot or tittle.
What next from the Dahiya Doctrine? The Nazis experimented with execution by flamethrower didn’t they?
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It is utterly shameful that there is no recognition of these worsening (as if they could get worse in the 100 year assault on Palestinian lives, rights and even basic conditions we all take for granted. Come on USA, UK, Europe….ACT to stop the genocidal regime.
Israel’s attacks on other countries are a strategic move to distract from their genocidal activity in Gaza and the West Bank while at the same time expanding territory. All this is further complicated by Netanyahu’s precarious position as Israels, supposedly democratic state, leader.