The Weaponization of Stench: How Israel Utilizes and Exports Skunk Water

Israeli security forces have long utilized a foul-smelling substance known as skunk water against Palestinians, transforming the chemical into both a crowd-control tactic and an exportable counterinsurgency product. Developed in 2004 by the Israeli company Odortec in partnership with Israel Police’s Technological Development Department, the substance was first deployed against Palestinian protesters in Nilin in 2008.

From Nilin, its use spread across the occupied West Bank, becoming a regular feature of demonstrations in Bilin, Kafr Qaddum, and Nabi Saleh against settlements, land seizures, and movement restrictions. In 2011, Israeli forces fired tear gas and skunk water on unarmed demonstrators attending the burial of a 28-year-old killed by the Israeli army in Nabi Saleh. Similar incidents followed in 2012 and 2013, before expanding to Hebron in 2013 and East Jerusalem in 2014, where police trucks sprayed homes, streets, and schools, including four schools in at-Tur that forced 4,500 pupils to stay home.

By 2018, the Israeli military was deploying the liquid from the air during the Great March of Return in Gaza, using the Shoko drone to douse protesters. Most recently, reports emerged of a foul smell spreading across Gaza City overnight after Israeli aircraft allegedly dropped hundreds of packets containing the substance over populated areas, compounding the conditions faced by survivors.

Beyond crowd control, skunk water functions as a tool to make Palestinian spaces unliveable. Furthermore, Israel has capitalized on its development by marketing these policing methods globally. Companies like Beit Alfa Technologies supplied skunk water to the South African Police Service in 2007, and India’s Central Reserve Police Force tested it in places like Jammu and Kashmir in 2017. The Who Profits Research Center noted efforts to sell it to Colombian police, while in the United States, Mistral Security supplies the product to departments such as the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department following the 2014 Ferguson protests.

Through these deployments and international sales, skunk water represents more than just a chemical deterrent; it serves as a symbol of Israel's broader counterinsurgency and policing technologies built around the control of Palestinians.