Israeli arms company Rafael exploits Gaza killings in marketing campaign

Israeli state-owned arms company Rafael has released a promotional video showing its Spike Firefly unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracking and killing a person in Gaza. The video, posted on the company's social media platforms, shows a miniature kamikaze (suicide) drone hovering over a rubble-strewn neighborhood in the Palestinian enclave, identifying a person walking in the street and then targeting him.

The post is titled "Spike Firefly in Urban Warfare" and is accompanied by dramatic, military-themed music, according to the British website Middle East Eye.

According to the titles on the screen, the drone “identifies the target,” “tracks it,” and “neutralizes the threat.”

The video shows the Firefly hovering silently before swooping down on the person who spots the drone and runs for cover. An explosion then occurs, "neutralizing the threat."

It is unclear whether the targeted person was a Palestinian fighter or not, but they did not appear to be armed, but rather unarmed, walking alone on the road, and did not appear to pose a threat to anyone.

Open source analyst Anu Nimo located the video in Rafael's post in the Al-Tawam area in northern Gaza.

"Based on two Google Earth satellite images, the video appears to have been captured between June 4, 2024, and December 1, 2024," Ano Nimmo said, adding that potential changes in the area are evident in Sentinel satellite images from November 2024.

“We celebrate two years since the first operational deployment of the Spike Firefly system, heralding a new era of precision for tactical combat forces,” Rafael said in a post accompanying the video on its Twitter account. “Tested. Trusted. Tactical.”

“Firefly has proven itself in some of the most challenging environments, delivering precise strikes with minimal collateral damage, even in GPS jamming environments and adverse weather conditions,” the arms company said on Facebook.

The Rafael UAV is designed for use by ground forces in dense urban areas where situational awareness is limited, the enemy fights from behind cover, and the effectiveness of fire support elements is reduced by the proximity of civilians.

None of these conditions appear to apply to the video released by Rafael. The drone was designed to be controlled in real time by a single soldier.

Israel has sold defense equipment to at least 130 countries and is now the eighth largest arms exporter in the world.

Israeli companies marketed the technology and weapons used against Palestinian populations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza as "battle-tested," a tactic seen in Rafael's video.

Rafael was founded in 1948 by the State of Israel as the "Science Corps." The company is perhaps best known now for developing Iron Dome, Israel's integrated air defense system, and its guided missiles.

This arms company has a long history of exceptional marketing. In 2009, Rafael released a Bollywood-style music video to promote its weapons in India.

The video features a man wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses, representing Israel, and a woman wearing an embroidered sari, representing India.

The two characters sing to each other, while a group of Indian women dance around them. The Indian woman sings, "I need to feel safe and protected, safe and protected." She sings, "I believe in you," to which the man representing Israel replies, "You believe in me." Together they sing in chorus, "Together, forever, we will always be."

"Despite the controversy it stirred in Israel, the film was a huge success and contributed to several multi-billion dollar contracts," said Roni Dana, who filmed the ad and posted it on their YouTube page.

In 2024, Rafael achieved sales of $4.8 billion, a 27% increase over the previous year. The company explained that "nearly half" of these sales were directed to "international customers," including 20 NATO member states.

Rafael is the largest employer in northern Israel, with ten offices abroad, including in the UK, the US, the UAE, and India.

An Indian government advisor, who requested anonymity to comment on a sensitive matter, described the Firefly drone's targeting of the man in the Gaza video as a "war crime."

“Yes, it is a clear war crime: killing someone who appears to be unarmed, walking in the street and not engaged in military activity,” Nimer Sultani, a Palestinian public law student at SOAS University in London, told MEE.

Article 3 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that: “Persons taking no active part in 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 a direct part in hostilities” as a war crime.

"In this case, these killings are considered part of genocide. So they are genocidal killings," Soltani told the website.

It is noteworthy that during Israel's war on Gaza, the Israeli military used Rafael's Spike guided missiles extensively to target people inside buildings from the air and on the ground. The Orbiter 4, a drone developed by Rafael's Aeronautics subsidiary, was used operationally for the first time in Gaza on November 8, 2023. In March, Rafael Systems Global System, a US subsidiary of the Israeli company, announced it had signed a cooperation agreement with the US military to closely develop the Spike missile family, including "future enhancements and USization" of the munitions.