OlehGirl.com
The “sound bomb” crowd disperser in action in Gaza
What do you do when militants set up operations in the midst of innocent civilians and striking at the militants would put those non-combatants in danger? The Israel Defense Forces has a policy of warning the civilians in the area before any attack by first calling the telephones of all residents in the to-be-targeted area and warning them to leave and following that up by dropping leaflets warning them to leave the area prior to an attack. But sometimes they just won’t go. And sometimes terrorist groups like Hamas and like Hezbollah won’t let them go to an area of safety but rather hold them hostage in an attempt to up the civilian death toll.
Enter the sound bomb. It makes a hell of a loud noise but does not cause damage. When it goes off, people leave the vicinity. They are now setting them off in areas where, despite warnings and pleas for civilians to leave, civilians are still remaining in the vicinity of a target. Once the sound bomb sends the civilians on their way, the actual strike on the target is made.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Yael on January 2, 2009 at 4:50 pm, and is filed under Israel. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
(Photo by Dani Machlis)
about 4 years ago
Does Hamas use the warning system used by the Israelis now and that the IDF also used in the conflict with Hezbollah? Do they send out warnings to the civilians of incoming missles?
about 4 years ago
No, they specifically time their rockets to coincide with the start of the school day as children are heading to their schools and in the hour when school lets out and the children are on their way home. They attempt to target the schools themselves and, indeed, schools and kindergartens are among the most frequently hit buildings.
There was talk a couple of years ago, maybe a year ago?, among the school board members in Sderot about the possibility of altering the school day times, having it start earlier on some days and much later on others with the idea that it might make kids safer and the rocket launchers guessing but logistically it wasn’t practical to do that.
about 4 years ago
Hm, this all is nice and fine, but why would anyone expect a Hamas terrorist not to leave the area when everyone else is warned and fleeing? This way all the IAF is targeting are empty buildings. This does not make any sense.
Another thing that is almost comical: All the world is complaining about Israel being soooo bad. Has anyone ever heard of a war where the one party is supplying all the power, water, most of the food etc. for the enemy. If Israel would be so bad as they say, how come that obviously even the phone system in Gaza is still working. In a real war, one of the first things that go are infrastructure systems like power, water, and of course communications. You don’t let your enemy go on yaddering on their phones, giving their soldiers commands and directions.
If Israel was fighting a real war, Gaza by now should be looking like Berlin looked in 1945. What is going on now is some controlled urban planning by removing some empty buildings, that is all.
about 2 years ago
Warning people that they’re about to be attacked isn’t that commendable. You know, a lot of people have no where to go. A lot of people shouldn’t be made to go. A lot of people will be made homeless by what the IDF does. And you’re impressed with the humanity shown by leaflets and sound bombs. A lot of people say tasers are a humane means of showing force, too.
And why do Israel’s partisans always blame civilian casualties which are the result of their own actions on the people they’ve attacked? Have you ever considered what the label terrorist really means? Because when Hamas wins a democratic election, I don’t think they can be called terrorists any longer.
I think you should reconsider how you talk about these issues. You should probably admit to your poorly-masked bigotry and just admit that you don’t think Palestinians should be treated well. All Israelis talk about how humane they are. Luckily, outside of the US, no one believes you.
about 2 years ago
As a psychological-anthropologist specializing in Palestinian culture and the Arab-Israeli conflict, nothing in the “article” above is actually true. They are not pleading with Palestinians to leave their homes temporarily so they can weed out the terrorists, they are threatening them and forcing permanent displacement. Furthermore, these sound bombs are not peaceful alternatives to violence (as this thread would have you believe), they are in and of themselves a form of psychological violence, a form of state sponsored terrorism, aimed at suppressing Palestinian resistance through fear. IDF soldiers do not give warnings to the people in these villages, they simply come into villages without warning and set them off. The result, over 72% of Palestinian children suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder (33% at severe PSTD levels and in need of direct/immediate psychological intervention, 49% at moderate PSTD levels), many citing these sound bombs as a trigger for PSTD episodes (flashbacks, panic attacks, etc…).
I’m not saying that Palestinian terrorist groups are justified in any way, shape, or form for the threatening and killing of non-combatants, and much of my research is dedicated to mitigating this problem, but Israel uses terrorist tactics as well and is not the “white knight” that the American media would have us believe it is.