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Drone-dropped incendiary grenades: deadly, prohibited, and quintessentially Israeli

An as-yet-unidentified drone dropped an incendiary device onto the lead boat of the Gaza flotilla on 8-9 September. Moored in the Tunisian port of Sidi Bou Said, the flotilla’s goal is to break the siege of Gaza. Hours later, a second attack took place.

UN special rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese tweeted an image of the munition used:

Albanese added:

Expert sources suggest that it was an incendiary grenade wrapped in plastic materials dipped in fuel, which could have been set on fire before landing on the ship.

Attacking a flotilla: an established Israeli tactic

Attacking humanitarian boats is established Israeli practice, sometimes with deadly results.  So is dropping incendiary devices by drone. This footage is from south Gaza in March 2024:

The spray and spatter of the burning material is visibly similar to that which hit the deck of the Flotilla’s ‘Family Boat’ in Tunisia.

Here is a side-by-side from an open source intelligence (OSINT) expert for comparison:

Ambulance attacks

Israel used a similar method to attack ambulances in Gaza in 2 September. Middle East Eye reported:

The Israeli military used a drone to drop incendiary grenades on an ambulance at Al-Sheikh Radwan Clinic in Gaza City… it is currently unknown whether there were paramedics or patients in the ambulance.

Healthcare workers and infrastructure have been routinely targeted during the Israeli assault on Gaza. And a UN body even described this as “medicide” in August 2025:

Health and care workers have been continuously targeted, detained, tortured and are now, like the rest of the population, being starved.

Legalities of drones dropping incendiaries

The increased use of drone-borne incendiary devices in Gaza and elsewhere has attracted controversy. The NGO Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said:

While militaries extol their tactical advantages, these weapons’ indiscriminate nature and potential for civilian harm have led to renewed calls for stricter regulation under international humanitarian law (IHL), especially under Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) defines incendiary weaponry as:

Weapons or munitions primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flames, heat, or a combination thereof, produced by the chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target. Incendiary weapons can take the form of flamethrowers, fougasses, shells, rockets, grenades, mines bombs and other containers of incendiary substances (e.g., napalm, phosphorous).

The ICRC added that it is “prohibited in all circumstances” to use incendiary weapons “against the civilian population, civilian objects, forests or other kinds of plant cover”.

Incendiary weapons delivered by drone

The use of incendiary weapons has increased in recent years, including their delivery by drone. A 2020 Human Rights Watch (HRW) examines their use in Afghanistan, Syria and Gaza:

They inflict excruciating burns, sometimes to the bone, and can cause respiratory damage, infection, shock, and organ failure.

The current Gaza flotilla aims to reach its destination in mid-September. 

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

This post was originally published on Canary.