Joysticks and Genocide: Meet Gaza’s Roaming Explosive Robot Nightmare

By Refaat Ibrahim 

Nour, a mother of two from Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, does not need to see the new Israeli weapon to know when it strikes. She knows it by its terrifying sound.

“It feels like dozens of rockets hitting at the same time,” she told QNN. “The sky turns orange, the windows collapse, and the doors burst open. My children scream and jump in terror. My little boy Khaled runs to me crying with every explosion. We put the windows back up each morning, and at night they fall again.”

“When the explosion happens, the windows collapse. A strong suction of air hits, then—boom—they fall. This happens every night, and each morning we have to put the windows back in place.”

For Nour, nights have become unbearable. “I don’t sleep. Just as you try to doze off through the drones and the F-16s, the robot explodes and you wake up screaming with the kids. I’ve developed disorders from it. The fear is worse at night, the sound louder. Every blast shakes the house and our lives with it.”

Her words capture the hidden reality of Israel’s new weapon in Gaza; explosive robots, remote-controlled machines that flatten neighborhoods and terrorize civilians.

What is an explosive robot?

Explosive robots are primitive military vehicles repurposed from outdated armored carriers like the US-made M113. The Israeli army loads them with barrels containing tons of explosives and tows them into crowded neighborhoods using D9 bulldozers. Once in position, soldiers detonate them remotely.

Israel claims the robots are used to destroy ambush sites or suspected militant positions. But Gaza’s residents tell a different story: the blasts wipe out entire blocks of homes, hospitals, and roads, leaving behind mass graves of rubble. Eyewitnesses describe the detonations as “earthquakes” or even “miniature nuclear bombs.”

Neighborhoods Turned to Dust

The attacks have hit some of Gaza’s most crowded areas:

• Jabalia: Residential complexes in Al-Balad, Al-Saftawi, Al-Zaytoun, and Al-Sabra erased.
• Rafah and Khan Younis: Whole neighborhoods and critical clinics flattened.
• Gaza City: Homes near Kamal Adwan Hospital destroyed, crippling medical access.

Each robot explosion can wipe out more than 300 square meters in a single blast. Electricity, water, and sewage systems collapse, leaving entire families cut off from survival needs.

Terror Beyond the Blast

The devastation is not just physical. Sometimes the robots sit for hours before exploding. Families wait in dread, unsure if the detonation will come at night or at dawn. For mothers like Nour, the fear is relentless.

“Every sound we hear, we know if it’s the robot,” she explained. “It’s different, sharper. We live in constant fear they will advance on us without warning. The occupation gives no notice, no mercy.”

Children develop trauma, elders faint from the shockwaves, and families move again and again in desperate search of safety that never exists.

A Violation of Law and Humanity

Human rights groups warn that the use of such indiscriminate weapons in dense civilian areas is a direct violation of international humanitarian law. The Gaza Government Media Office has called the use of explosive robots war crimes. Civil defense teams in Jabalia confirm that entire families remain trapped under rubble because rescue crews are blocked by ongoing strikes.

International voices, including the United Nations and Human Rights Watch, are calling for investigations into potential war crimes. But so far, Israel continues to defend the robots as tools to “protect its soldiers”, even as evidence mounts of their overwhelming civilian toll.

A Weapon That Leaves No Refuge

For Gaza’s families, explosive robots symbolize a terrifying new stage of the war; machines packed with tons of TNT roam into their streets, reducing homes, hospitals, and schools to ashes, all detonated remotely by a soldier as if playing a video game.

Nour sums it up in words the world cannot ignore:

“The bombing never spares anyone. With these robots, we live surrounded by death. Every night we fear the next explosion will be ours.”