ABSTRACT
Throughout the years of the second intifada, a major Israeli effort was directed at the development of airborne assassinations and the specific technology related to it. From what was often described as a “rare and exceptional emergency method,” it has become the Israeli Air Force’s main form of attack in the Gaza Strip. According to Ephraim Segoli, a helicopter pilot and former commander of the air force base in Palmahim, located halfway between Tel Aviv and Gaza, from which most assassination raids have been launched and where now the largest fleets of remotely controlled killer drones are located, airborne “liquidations are the central component of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) operations and the very essence of the ‘war’ it is waging.” Segoli, speaking in May 2006, claimed, furthermore, that “the intention to ‘perfect’ these operations meant that Israel’s security industries have … started concentrating [much of their efforts] on the development of systems that primarily serve this operational logic.” 1
