An Israeli soldier operates Spot and Shoot, a system that allows her to fire a remotely controlled machine-gun to execute Palestinians who approach the fence around Gaza by pressing a button on her joystick. Israel is at the forefront of developing such remote killing technology.
By Jonathan Cook* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz
It is called Spot and Shoot. Operators sit in front of a TV monitor from which they can control the action with a PlayStation-style joystick.
The aim: to kill.
Played by: young women serving in the Israeli army.
Spot and Shoot, as it is called by the Israeli military, may look like a video game but the figures on the screen are real people – Palestinians in Gaza – who can be killed with the press of a button on the joystick.
The female soldiers, located far away in an operations room, are responsible for aiming and firing remote-controlled machine-guns mounted on watch-towers every few hundred metres along an electronic fence that surrounds Gaza.
The system is one of the latest "remote killing" devices developed by Israel's Rafael armaments company, the former weapons research division of the Israeli army and now a separate governmental firm.
According to Giora Katz, Rafael's vice president, remote-controlled military hardware such as Spot and Shoot is the face of the future. He expects that within a decade at least a third of the machines used by the Israeli army to control land, air and sea will be unmanned.
The demand for such devices, the Israeli army admits, has been partly fuelled by a combination of declining recruitment levels and a population less ready to risk death in combat.
Oren Berebbi, head of its technology branch, recently told an American newspaper: "We're trying to get to unmanned vehicles everywhere on the battlefield … We can do more and more missions without putting a soldier at risk."
Rapid progress with the technology has raised alarm at the United Nations. Philip Alston, its special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, warned last month of the danger that a "PlayStation mentality to killing" could quickly emerge.
According to analysts, however, Israel is unlikely to turn its back on hardware that it has been at the forefront of developing – using the occupied Palestinian territories, and especially Gaza, as testing laboratories.
Remotely controlled weapons systems are in high demand from repressive regimes and the burgeoning homeland security industries around the globe.
"These systems are still in the early stages of development but there is a large and growing market for them," said Shlomo Brom, a retired general and defence analyst at the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
The Spot and Shoot system – officially known as Sentry Tech – has mostly attracted attention because it is operated by 19- and 20-year-old female soldiers, making it the Israeli army's only weapons system operated exclusively by women.
Female soldiers are preferred to operate remote killing devices because of a shortage of male recruits to Israel's combat units. Young women can carry out missions without breaking the social taboo of risking their lives, said Mr Brom.
The women are supposed to identify anyone suspicious approaching the fence around Gaza and, if authorised by an officer, execute them using their joysticks.
The Israeli army, which plans to introduce the technology along Israel's other confrontation lines, refuses to say how many Palestinians have been killed by the remotely controlled machine-guns in Gaza. According to the Israeli media, however, it is believed to be several dozen.
The system was phased-in two years ago for surveillance, but operators were only able to open fire with it more recently. The army admitted using Sentry Tech in December to kill at least two Palestinians several hundred metres inside the fence.
The Haaretz newspaper, which was given rare access to a Sentry Tech control room, quoted one soldier, Bar Keren, 20, last week saying: "It's very alluring to be the one to do this. But not everyone wants this job. It's no simple matter to take up a joystick like that of a Sony PlayStation and kill, but ultimately it's for defence."
Audio sensors on the towers mean that the women hear the shot as it kills the target. No woman, Haaretz reported, had failed the task of shooting what the army calls an "incriminated" Palestinian.
The Israeli military, which enforces an unmarked no-man's land inside the fence that reaches as deep as 300 metres into the tiny enclave, has been widely criticised for opening fire on civilians entering the closed zone.
Rafael is reported to be developing a version of Sentry Tech that will fire long-range guided missiles.
Another piece of hardware recently developed for the Israeli army is the Guardium, an armoured robot-car that can patrol territory at up to 80km per hour, navigate through cities, launch "ambushes" and shoot at targets. It now patrols the Israeli borders with Gaza and Lebanon.
Its Israeli developers, G-Nius, have called it the world's first "robot soldier".
But Israel is most known for its role in developing "unmanned aerial vehicles" – or drones, as they have come to be known. Originally intended for spying, and first used by Israel over south Lebanon in the early 1980s, today they are increasingly being used for extrajudicial executions from thousands of feet in the sky.
* Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Occupied Palestine.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Good Lord!! Killing is just another video game for the young to play. Where does all of this end?
Oh my god!..no i m not surprised really,its expected that humans behind these machines lack every human characteristic,but this is not to justify their elimination,it is so we understand that to solve the problem ,we need a different approach.maybe they are planning to eliminate all palestinians ,so no more problems…then they will come for us….so no more.stop dealing with israeli interests ,do not buy israeli products ,do not work for israeli companies,do not help in any way these interests to remain strong and in control of the international life in every level.
they get power through money ,so stop the money.press your country not to buy any weapons (if at all) from israelli factories of death ,(or better from any weapons factory ),as most are in one way or the other under the control ofthe same people.stop buying anything that has connection with israel ,even if it is a rumour ,stop the financing of the killers of humanity.
i try to stay out of politics ,but when i see dead bodies i can not stay silent.and so i hope millions of humans on this planet.
the only solution is to ask these guys to please find another planet and do your perverted games ,here on planet earth we do not like or tolerate this behaviour.so you need to go ,or change.now!,
LEAVE IT TO A JEW. THEY KILL INNOCENT HUMANS. And,THEY GET A PASS………BECAUSE THEY ARE ASHKANAZI JEWS”"! I CAN SEE IT NOW…..IN AMERICAS JEW RUN MEDIA………PALESTINIANS KILL BY ROBOTS………….ISRAEL CALLS FOR ALL OUT WAR”"”! TALK ABOUT “ONE-SIDED” NEWS”! AMERICA………….WAKE THE HELL UP”"! THESE PEOPLE (ASHKANAZI’S) ARE WORSE THEN THE NAZI’S !!!!!
Whatever a man can conceive and believe they will achieve. This is very much like ender’s game except the people know what they are doing
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