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Witnesses say Israel is using sniper drones in Gaza and they're shooting civilians

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Last week British surgeon Nizam Mamode testified in front of a committee in the U.K. Parliament.

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NIZAM MAMODE: What I think I found particularly disturbing...

SUMMERS: Dr. Mamode had recently returned from working at a hospital in Central Gaza, and he told parliamentary members what he witnessed, including...

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MAMODE: A bomb would drop, maybe on a crowded, tented area. And then the drones would come down, and...

SUMMERS: A new kind of drone in the Israeli arsenal, one with a gun and a camera attached that can shoot remotely.

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MAMODE: So the drones would come down and pick off civilians, children. And we had description after description. This is not, you know, an occasional thing. This was day after day after day.

SUMMERS: For months, NPR has been collecting eyewitness accounts from Gaza that corroborate Dr. Mamode's testimony, saying the Israeli military has been using sniper drone technology and that they're shooting civilians, NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reports. And a warning - this piece includes the sound of gunfire.

KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Thirty-seven-year-old Fatma Daama is a freelance journalist from Jabalia in Northern Gaza. It's an area that has been besieged by Israeli forces since early October. Daama sent NPR voice notes from her home there on October 9.

FATMA DAAMA: (Non-English language spoken).

LONSDORF: "Hi. How are you," she starts.

DAAMA: (Non-English language spoken).

LONSDORF: "Israeli tanks are closing in," she says, "and the army is nearby." Suddenly, she's interrupted.

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DAAMA: (Speaking Arabic).

LONSDORF: "Hear that," she says. "That's the quadcopter." It's what many in Gaza call the small, hovering drone with a rifle mounted underneath.

DAAMA: (Speaking Arabic).

LONSDORF: "If I try to go closer to the door to get better service," she says, "the quadcopter starts shooting, and I have to go back inside. It's very dangerous."

DAAMA: (Speaking Arabic).

LONSDORF: "The town is under siege by the shooting quadcopter drones," she says. "No one can move." For months, NPR has collected accounts for more than a dozen people in Gaza who say they've seen these sniper drones and that they've seen them used to shoot and sometimes kill civilians.

ADIP SHAQFA: (Speaking Arabic).

LONSDORF: Fifty-five-year-old Adib Shaqfa says he was walking with his 32-year-old son on May 31 in Rafah in Southern Gaza.

SHAQFA: (Speaking Arabic).

LONSDORF: Shaqfa says it was a quiet day. There was no fighting nearby when suddenly...

SHAQFA: (Speaking Arabic).

LONSDORF: ...A drone appeared and shot his son, who was walking up ahead. He says two men rushed in to help his son, and they were also shot.

SHAQFA: (Speaking Arabic).

LONSDORF: Two older women nearby were also shot in the head, he says. Shaqfa says the women were killed. So was his son. The Israeli military told NPR it's unaware of this incident and that any suggestion that it intends to harm civilians is unfounded and baseless. NPR also asked the Israeli military repeatedly if it was using the sniper drone technology in Gaza. It did not respond to the question.

SETH JONES: Israel, frankly, like many militaries, is very cautious about what kinds of information it provides about its operations and tactics that it uses.

LONSDORF: Seth Jones is president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

JONES: But it also makes it more difficult for everyday Israelis or journalists or other researchers to understand how these things are being used.

LONSDORF: Further complicating that understanding, until recently, Israel had a censorship law in place forbidding the media from reporting on armed drone use by the military. And it's something most journalists can't witness with their own eyes. Israel has not allowed outside journalists independent access to Gaza since the war began more than a year ago. But we do know that this sniper drone technology exists and that the Israeli military has it. This is a video from 2018 by Duke Robotics Incorporated...

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Duke Robotics presents...

LONSDORF: ...For a small drone they call...

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: ...TIKAD...

LONSDORF: ...TIKAD...

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: ...The future soldier.

LONSDORF: ...Which can be outfitted with several different firearms...

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Robots are replacing combat soldiers.

LONSDORF: ...And shoot while it hovers, adjusting for the recoil of the weapon.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The company is in the process of implementing orders from Israeli forces.

LONSDORF: Duke Robotics is based in Florida in the U.S. but was established by veterans of several Israeli special forces units. Around that same time, Israel's defense ministry released a video showing off new technology, including soldiers controlling one of Duke's sniper drones remotely and firing at targets at an outdoor shooting range. Then in 2021, Duke Robotics joined with an Israeli company, Elbit Systems, specifically to further develop the TIKAD drone and market it globally. And there are other sniper drones in the market, too, also by Israeli companies.

In 2022, a company called SMARTSHOOTER based in Northern Israel announced a drone called SMASH Dragon. In this YouTube video posted by the company, a small drone with a rifle barrel attached takes flight. The video then zooms in through the viewfinder to show the drone locking in on a human-shaped target before taking a shot. SMARTSHOOTER denies that their SMASH Dragon drone is being used by the Israeli military, but Israeli forces have touted using their technology in the past, and other products by the company are partially funded by Israel's defense ministry research and development. On SMARTSHOOTER's website, it says it uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to provide, quote, "one-shot, one-hit precision."

JAMES ROGERS: I would argue we're reaching a point where there are increasingly diminished human oversight over the practice of killing in war and also the decision-making process around who lives or dies.

LONSDORF: James Rogers is an expert on drone warfare and emerging technologies at Cornell University. He points out that precision can be good. But...

ROGERS: No matter how precise your weapon systems are, if your intelligence is wrong, then all that precision, that guaranteed destruction of the target means is the guaranteed death of the wrong person.

AHMED MOGHRABI: The gunshot of the quadcopter has a special sound.

LONSDORF: Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi is a head surgeon at Nasser Hospital in Central Gaza. He says he's treated many people shot by the sniper quadcopter drone.

MOGHRABI: They used to shoot at the displaced people inside the hospital, and they killed many people, actually.

LONSDORF: Back in early February, Nasser Hospital was a focus of the Israeli military, saying Hamas fighters were hiding there. On February 1, Dr. Moghrabi says he and his coworker, a male nurse, stepped out onto a balcony after finishing a long surgery.

MOGHRABI: The quadcopter actually shoot at my nurse friend beside me.

LONSDORF: A drone shot the nurse in the chest.

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MOGHRABI: They shooted (ph) at us. (Non-English language spoken).

LONSDORF: Dr. Moghrabi sent us a video he filmed that day. Colleagues rushed the nurse into an operating room as blood blooms around a bullet wound on his right chest.

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MOGHRABI: (Non-English language spoken).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).

MOGHRABI: (Non-English language spoken).

LONSDORF: "Quickly, quickly," Dr. Moghrabi says as others cut away the nurse's clothing to operate. The nurse survived. The Israeli military told NPR it was unaware of this incident as well.

Here are just a few of the other stories we heard. Several people we talked to in Beit Lahia in the north described sniper drones recently shooting at civilians as they rushed to help pull people from the rubble after an Israeli airstrike leveled a building full of families. One man said a sniper drone entered his house with his family inside, started shooting, forcing them to flee. One doctor from the U.K. described sniper drones firing on people as they tried to enter a hospital in Gaza city, where he was working. He told NPR he saw more than 20 injuries in one day from the drones, including one child shot in the neck, who later died.

Although there's been very little reporting on these drones, people in Gaza talk about them a lot. Most people we talked to brought up these attacks offhandedly. Sniper drones seem to have become so common in the war. And as Seth Jones points out, once technology exists, it rarely goes away.

JONES: The reality is this is an evolution in the character of war. So I don't think we're going to turn around and go the other direction.

LONSDORF: This might very well be the future of warfare. Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Tel Aviv. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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