Footage of intense and graphic drone combat from the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) operations in the West Bank during a raid in April was leaked, Emanuel Fabian, The Times of Israel’s military correspondent, reported Tuesday.
The footage underscores the close quarters and the multiple uses of drones in actual combat from scouting the terrain for enemy forces to bombing them.
Live update: Graphic video shows troops using drones to kill Palestinian gunmen in West Bank in April https://t.co/YKjUH26gRX
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The video opened with a date given for the timeframe of the military operation, which was from April 18 to 20, in the West Bank’s Nur Shams encampment. A drone can be seen wandering around the camp and coming across a group of armed Palestinians in an alley who tried to shoot the drone. The drone managed to evade its attackers. (RELATED: IDF Releases Footage Of Fatal Drone Strike Of Senior Hezbollah Official Amid Deadly Day For Terror Organization)
A second drone flew to get a bird’s eye view of the armed band, The Times of Israel reported.
The controller of the drone then appears to have used the zoom function to confirm the presence of the gunmen. The drone then was used to target the militants with a bomb. The drone’s zoom function was again used to show only one gunman still standing. A second bomb was then used to kill off the militant.
The first drone was then used to get a ground perspective of the area that the IDF bombed and appeared to confirm that all the gunmen were killed.
During IDF operations in the Nur Shams encampment, at least 14 gunmen were killed, The Times of Israel reported. Nur Shams was home to over 6,000 inhabitants in 2017, according to City Population.
While the West Bank is not the main theater of war between Israel and armed Palestinian factions like Hamas, it is nonetheless an area from which these militants operate. The IDF eliminated two high-ranking terror operatives, one of whom was a senior member of Islamic Jihad, in Jenin, a city in the West Bank, during one operation back on Nov. 29, according to The Times of Israel.
