In the eyes of Israeli authorities, Palestinians in Gaza have it “too good”. Three years into Israel’s genocide, the survivors have been pushed into ever smaller areas of land amid rubble, rubbish and disease, without adequate shelter or sanitation. Apparently, even that is too much.
In late September, a foul smell spread across Gaza City overnight. At first, residents searched for its source around them, wondering whether it was coming from a toilet or even one of their sleeping children. Then reports of the same stench began coming in from across the city.
Israeli aircraft had reportedly dropped hundreds of packets containing a foul-smelling substance over populated areas. Even the air?” said one witness to AJ+. Israel has, in fact, spent nearly two decades weaponising foul smells against Palestinians.
Skunk water, the leading Israeli olfactory ordnance now believed to be in use in Gaza, was developed in 2004 by the Israeli company Odortec in partnership with Israel Police’s Technological Development Department, and first deployed against Palestinian protesters in Nilin in 2008. It is classified as a “scent-based non-lethal weapon” for crowd control and can be fired from water cannon or dropped from drones. From Nilin, its use spread across the occupied West Bank.
It became a regular feature of demonstrations in Bilin, Kafr Qaddum and Nabi Saleh, where Israeli forces repeatedly used it against Palestinians protesting settlements, land seizures and restrictions on movement. In 2011, Israeli forces fired tear gas and skunk water on unarmed demonstrators who had attended the burial of a 28-year-old killed by the Israeli army in Nabi Saleh and were then making their way to the village spring that had been “appropriated by the neighbouring settlement, Halamish”. Similar incidents were reported there in 2012 and 2013.
The practice soon spread beyond those West Bank villages. In 2013, activists demonstrating against the closure of Shuhada Street in Hebron and journalists covering the protest were sprayed with the putrid liquid. The following year, Israeli police drove skunk trucks through Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, spraying homes, streets and schools.
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