Israeli state-owned weapons company Rafael released a promotional video showing its drone system, Spike Firefly, tracking and killing a person in Gaza.
The video, posted across the company’s social media platforms, shows the miniature kamikaze drone hovering over a rubble strewn neighbourhood in the Palestinian enclave, identifying somebody walking down the street and then targeting them.
The post is titled “Spike Firefly in urban warfare” and is accompanied by dramatic, miltary-style music.
According to the on-screen titles, the drone “identifies the target,” “tracks it,” “and neutralises the threat”.
The video shows the Firefly silently hovering before diving after the person, who sees the drone and runs for cover. There is then an explosion, which “neutralises the threat”.
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It is unclear whether the targeted individual is a Palestinian fighter or not. They do not appear to be armed. They are walking along the road alone and do not appear to be posing a threat to anyone.
Open-source analyst Anno Nemo geolocated the footage in Rafael’s post to the al-Tawam area of northern Gaza.
“Based on 2 Google Earth satellite images the video appears to have been taken between 4 June 2024 and 1 December 2024,” Anno Nemo said, adding that possible changes are visible in the area on Sentinel satellite imagery from November 2024.
“We mark two years since SPIKE FIREFLY was first operationally deployed – ushering in a new era of precision for the tactical fighting forces,” Rafael said in a post accompanying the video on its X account. “Tested. Trusted. Tactical.”
“FIREFLY has proven itself in some of the most challenging environments – delivering pinpoint strikes with minimal collateral damage, even in GPS jamming environments and under adverse weather conditions,” the weapons company said on Facebook.
The Rafael drone was designed to be used by ground forces in dense urban areas where “situational awareness is limited, the enemy is fighting from behind cover and the effectiveness of fire support elements is reduced by the close proximity of non-combatants”.
None of those conditions appear to apply to the video posted by Rafael. The drone is designed to be controlled in real time by a single soldier.
Middle East Eye reached out to Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, which is owned by the Israeli state, for comment on the video but did not receive a response by time of publication.
Israeli weapons marketing
Israel has sold defence equipment to at least 130 countries and is now the eighth biggest arms exporter in the world.
Israeli companies have marketed technology and weapons used on the Palestinian populations of the occupied West Bank and Gaza as “battlefield tested”, a tactic that can be seen in Rafael’s video.
Rafael was founded in 1948 along with the state of Israel as the Science Corps. It is now probably best known for developing Iron Dome, the Israeli integrated air defence system, and for its guided missiles.
The weapons company also has a history of unusual marketing. In 2009, Rafael released a Bollywood-style music video to advertise its weapons in India.
The video features a man in a leather jacket and sunglasses representing Israel and a woman dressed in an embroidered sari representing India.
The two characters sing to each other as a group of Indian women dance around them. “I need to feel safe and sheltered, security and protection,” the Indian woman sings. “I believe in you,” she sings, “You believe in me,” the man representing Israel sings back. “Together, forever, we will always be,” they sing in chorus.
Ronny Dana, who photographed the advert and posted it to their YouTube page, said that “despite the controversy it had in Israel, the film was very successful and contributed to several billion-dollar contracts”.
‘War crime’
In 2024, Rafael recorded sales of $4.8bn, a 27 percent increase on its figures from the year before. The company said that “approximately half” of these sales were to “international customers,” 20 of which are Nato countries.
Rafael is the largest employer in northern Israel and has ten offices outside Israel, including in the UK, US, UAE and India. An Indian government adviser, who asked for anonymity to comment on a sensitive matter, described the Firefly’s targeting of the man in the Gaza video as a “war crime”.
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“Yes it is an apparent war crime: killing what seems like an unarmed person, walking in the street and not engaged in a military activity,” Nimer Sultany, a Palestinian reader in public law at SOAS University in London, told MEE.
Article three of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that: “Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces… shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction.”
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines “intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities” as a war crime.
“In this case, these killings are taking part of a genocide. So they are genocidal killings,” Sultany said.
During Israel’s war on Gaza, the Israeli military has used Rafael Spike Guided Missiles extensively to target people inside buildings from the air and ground.
The Orbiter 4, a drone developed by Rafael subsidiary Aeronautics, was used operationally for the first time in Gaza on 8 November 2023.
In March, Rafael Systems Global Sustainment, a US subsidiary of the Israeli firm, announced that it had signed a cooperation agreement with the US army to closely develop the Spike family of missiles, including “future enhancements and Americanization” of the munitions.
