Tents housing displaced Palestinian families erected among the rubble in Al-Shati Refugee Camp, west of Gaza City, 19 June 2026. [Getty]
Israel’s military has deployed almost two-dozen military cranes in Gaza to launch attacks and conduct surveillance operations, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.
Researchers at the rights monitor said they had documented cases of the cranes being used to fire on civilian areas, resulting in deaths and injuries.
The cranes, some of which are operated remotely, are also equipped with cameras and are used to surveil the population.
PCHR said their use is additional evidence of a “systematic policy aimed at undermining the basic survival of the civilian population and creating a coercive environment that repeatedly displaces the population”.
The cranes have been set up at 23 locations behind the so-called yellow line, which separates Israel-occupied Gaza from the rest of the territory, PCHR said.
Tamer Nahed, a Gaza-based journalist, said the cranes “fire randomly and almost continuously at tents, streets, and exposed neighbourhoods”.
Three people, including a five year old girl, were killed by the fire earlier this week, he wrote on X.
Israeli forces continue to regularly conduct attacks across Gaza, defying the October ceasefire agreement that was supposed to bring an end to the assault.
Gaza health authorities say more than 1,000 people have been killed and another 3,165 others injured since the agreement came into force on 10 October.
At least four people were reportedly killed in a new round of strikes on Thursday. Medics said an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in Gaza City killed three people. Another was killed by Israeli forces in central Gaza.
The latest attacks came after mediators met in Cairo to discuss Donald Trump’s roadmap to end the war, which involves Israel’s withdrawal and Hamas’s disarmament.
Trump’s Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov, has been in negotiations with the Palestinian group about decommissioning its weapons.
Since October 2023, Israel’s genocidal assault has killed at least 73,018 people and wounded 173,273 others.
