Sounds of women and children crying: Israel's new “tactic” to track down and target Palestinians

To hit the Palestinians, the drones of the Israeli Armed Forces (IDF) reproduce the cries of women and children asking for help, “luring” the men out of their shelters. This would be it, at least according to the portal Middle East Eyethe new “tactic” used by the military of the Jewish State in the Gaza Strip.

Samira is 49 years old and lives in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the center of the Palestinian coastal territory, and like many, on the night of April 15, she was woken up by the crying of some women and children asking for help. “I heard a woman crying and shouting: 'Help me, my son has been killed'. The sounds came from the street and they were strange,” she told Middle East Eye. “There were different sounds coming from the drones,” added 19-year-old Mohammed. “They made noise: some recordings were intelligible and others not. They lasted 30 to 60 minutes, then they started opening fire and throwing bombs in the neighborhood.”

But when, together with others, Samira went out to understand where the screams were coming from, she heard shots from Israeli drones. These screams, heard for several minutes by the civilian population of the refugee camp, were not real but, according to the witness interviewed by the UK-based portal, had been reproduced specifically by the IDF drones to “lure” the men out of their hiding places .

“Usually, at night, the streets are empty and the men stay in their homes,” Samira explained to Middle East Eye. “When the drones open fire at that time, they only hit the roofs and streets, they don't find people to shoot at. So they played these sounds because they know the nature of our society; they know the men would try to offer help. They wanted them to come out so they could shoot them.”

At least 7 people were injured that night but no one could help them because, according to Samira, “the drones were shooting at anything that moved”. In the end only one ambulance managed to reach the area and transport those who had been hit to hospital.

In the Gaza Strip, the IDF is gradually replacing ground troops with armed drones, which help identify targets and strike them without endangering the lives of Israeli soldiers.