Israel puts up remote-controlled guns in West Bank

AL-AROUB REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — In two volatile spots in the occupied West Bank, Israel has installed robotic weapons that can fire tear gas, stun grenades and spongetipped bullets at Palestinian protesters.

The weapons, perched over a crowded Palestinian refugee camp and in a flash point West Bank city, use artificial intelligence to track targets. Israel says the technology saves lives — both Israeli and Palestinian. But critics see another step toward a dystopian reality in which Israel fine-tunes its openended occupation of the Palestinians while keeping its soldiers out of harm’s way.

The new weapon comes at a time of heightened tensions in the occupied West Bank, where unrest has risen sharply during what has been the deadliest year since 2006. The victory by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line alliance, which includes an extreme right-wing party with close ties to the settler movement, has raised concerns of more violence.

Twin turrets, each equipped with a watchful lens and a gun barrel, were recently installed atop a guard tower bristling with surveillance cameras overlooking the Al-Aroub refugee camp in the southern West Bank. When young Palestinian protesters pour into the streets hurling stones and firebombs at Israeli soldiers, the robotic weapons unleash tear gas or sponge-tipped bullets on them, witnesses say.

About a month ago, the military also placed the robots in the nearby city of Hebron, where soldiers often clash with stonethrowing Palestinian residents.

There are no soldiers next to the machines. Instead, the weapons are operated by remote control. At a touch of a button, soldiers nestled inside a guard tower can fire at selected targets.

The army says the system is being tested at this stage and fires only “non-lethal” weapons used for crowd control, such as sponge-tipped bullets and tear gas.

Robotic weapons are increasingly in operation around the world, with militaries expanding their use of drones to carry out lethal strikes from Ukraine to Ethiopia. Remote-controlled guns like the Israeli system in the West Bank have been used by the United States in Iraq, by South Korea along the border with North Korea, and by various Syrian rebel groups.