A comprehensive resource for safe and responsible laser use

Palestine & Israel: Palestinians use laser pointers to protest West Bank occupation

Palestinians used laser pointers and air horns to annoy illegal Israeli settlers during a weekslong protest. The demonstrations were said to be "grassroots" and not inspired by the Fatah or Hamas movements.


2021-08 Palestinan protests in West Bank
Handheld laser pointers being used by Palestinian protesters


From the
Daily Sabah. Additional pictures of the laser pointer use is at the link.

COMMENTARY FROM LASERPOINTERSAFETY.COM

It does not appear the laser pointers were being used against police or soldiers, and it does not appear that the demonstrators were trying to harm persons. Instead, the laser use was to "annoy" illegal settlers and to gain attention for the cause.

Israel: Attacks on motorists include laser pointer aimed at driver

A “wave of Arab terror attacks” in Judea and Samaria included stones and Molotov cocktails thrown at vehicles, and a report of a driver having “a laser pointer being pointed at her face in an attempt to impair her ability to drive.”

The news account did not seem to indicate that the laser usage was more widespread or organized.

From Arutz Sheva Israel International News

Israel: Palestinian girl playing with laser pointer beaten by Israeli forces

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli soldiers physically assaulted a 17-year-old Palestinian girl in Hebron on the evening of June 28 2017 while she was playing with a laser pointer with friends. She was taken to the hospital after suffering from bruises across her body.

News reports did not say how the laser pointer was linked to the beating. (For example, whether the girl was aiming it at the soldiers.)

From Wafa and the Ma’an News Agency

Israel: Protesters aiming laser pointers at drivers

Palestinian protesters aimed laser pointers at Israeli drivers, to temporarily blind them, according to a December 28 2015 news report.

The attacks happened at least three times on different routes in the West Bank.

An earlier report, from November 5 2014, describes an attack:

The [Jewish] driver reports that an Arab motorist came up next to his car, and used a laser to try and blind him and cause him to lose control of the vehicle.

"He came up next to me and aimed the laser at my face for several long seconds," the driver told Arutz Sheva.

"He tried to divert my view from the road so that I would crash. By a miracle I managed to escape...it's clear that he tried to kill me," reported the driver.


From the Algemeiner (2015) and Arutz Sheva