Skunk

Skunk

Israeli policy spraying Palestinian worshipers headed into Al-Aqsa with Skunk from a mobile high-pressure water cannon on June 17, 2021 at Damascus Gate.
Type	Chemical weapon
Inception	2004 (invented), 2008 (first used)
Manufacturer	Odortec

Skunk, also known as skunk water and referred to in Arabic as مية خرى or just خرى, is a putrid, highly nauseating liquid compound developed by private Israeli company Odortec in collaboration with the Technological Development Department of the Israel Police especially for use against Palestinians in 2004 and first used against them in 2008. Skunk is primarily and most famously used by the Israeli police and the IDF for "non-lethal crowd control" against Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, sprayed from mobile water cannons attached to vehicles carrying Skunk reserves, though it is also sold in handheld dispersion devices and grenades. When Skunk was first announced, its manufacturer advertised that the stink from Skunk was designed to stick to surfaces for up to five years.

Although described by its manufacturer as being composed of "100% food-grade ingredients" and "100% eco-friendly - harmless to both nature and people" with the disclosed ingredients being baking powder and yeast, Skunk also contains other, secret ingredients of unknown safety — and has been documented by its own manufacturer (among others) to cause harm. According to a 2017 report by Ha'aretz, "the spray is liable to cause physical harm, such as intense nausea, vomiting and skin rashes, in addition to any injury resulting from the powerful force of the spray."

Skunk mist, which is fired from a water cannon, is usually yellow and leaves a stench of sewage in the mouths, hair and clothes of the sprayed people – one that's intentionally very difficult to remove. Skunk’s safety data sheet indicates that the liquid can cause skin irritation, eye pain or redness and abdominal pain and that inhalation of the liquid may cause breathing difficulties.

According to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, "Skunk is rarely, if ever, used at demonstrations with only Jewish or Israeli dissidents. The targets are Palestinian bodies, singled out according to an ethnic hierarchy for the Skunk treatment."

Skunk is one of the many products developed by Israeli defense contractors that advertise their warfare tech as having been tested in real world settings (on Palestinians, usually in the West Bank or Gaza) when selling to purchasers from other countries.

History and Development

Skunk was developed in 2004 as part of a joint effort between Israeli police and Odortec, overseen by Israeli Police Chief Superintendent David Ben Haroush. Ben Haroush has claimed that Skunk is "non-toxic and safe to drink" — in direct conflict with the company's published safety literature per US federal government safety regulations, which states that Skunk may cause abdominal pain if ingested and that contact with skin or eyes should be avoided.

Skunk was first used against Palestinians in August of 2008 in the West Bank village of Ni'lin near Ramallah, when Israeli Border Police used mobile Skunk dispersion backpack units to spray demonstrators mere minutes after the demonstration began (with the implication that it may have been an unwarranted escalation and disproportionate response). Since then, Israeli military and police have abandoned the use of Skunk backpack and switched to exclusive use of militarized water cannon vehicles, due to the fact the latter afford them protection against backspray and incidental exposure. The vehicular dispersion technique lets Israeli officers deploy Skunk against their targets from the safety of their enclosed cabins, from where they use cameras and control panels in order to navigate and target demonstrators. The use of these high-pressure water cannons considerably exacerbates the danger to targeted individuals, suffering when the pressurized streams are targeted at their body, eyes, and limbs, in addition to the chemical harms of Skunk itself.

While developed as an alternative to other means of crowd control such as rubber bullets and tear gas – typically used as last-ditch security measures – the use of Skunk against Palestinian civilians has now become a first-line choice for disbanding even peaceful crowds or protests, including peaceful demonstrations where not even rocks or stones where thrown. Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has raised concerns that the use of Skunk is intended as a humiliative form of collective punishment, with Israeli personnel sometimes extending the use of Skunk to the entirety of Palestinian villages and spraying entire neighborhoods and homes on the other side of villages where protests were held.

Description

Skunk's method of action is to induce severe nausea and a neigh-irrepressible gag reflex, both of which are achieved by making it as horribly pungent as possible (the manufacturer's name, Odortec, derives from this goal). While its exact recipe, complete list of ingredients, and chemical analysis remains unknown, its manufacturer claims in official safety literature required when making the product available to the US market that "at the pH level of sodium bicarbonate the yeasts synthesize some amino acids causing heavy odor," although questions about the veracity of this claim have been raised. Conflicting descriptions of the strength and impact of exposure to Skunk have been reported and can be explained by documented variations in the mixing ratios Israeli police when preparing the chemical agent, ranging from a diluted solution of relatively small amounts of Skunk mixed with plain water to more concentrated mixtures and even solutions composed of Skunk mixed with other chemical agents or dyes.

According to +972 Magazine, "words cannot express the smell of the skunk [..] The strong stench smells like a mix of feces and animal carcass – gagging is almost inevitable," while a BBC article on the use of Skunk against Palestinians quoted one as saying it smells "worse than raw sewage". In a Reuters piece, a Palestinian in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh described it, "It's beyond foul water, like a dead body and rotting food together, which no soap or perfume can take off - I'm hit with it and nobody goes near me for days."

In addition to its immediate pungency, Skunk has also been repeatedly documented to be long-lasting – with its manufacturer claiming it was designed to persist for up to five years – and almost impossible to rid one's self of, lingering for months and necessitating throwing away soiled clothes, furniture, and belongings. It has also been described by human rights organizations as a weapon of dehumanization, with its smell overwhelming the body's own odor and its victims saying they felt humiliated and dehumanized as a result.

Documented physical harm

The official declaration of safety from its manufacturer and the Israeli government is made with the assumption that its use follows protocol — per the official Israeli policy, Skunk may be used only in open areas and “in a controlled manner, and the responsible commanding officer will stop its use immediately as soon as it is no longer needed.” There is also an explicit prohibition against spraying the liquid directly on demonstrators: “Use of the Skunk will be carried out by an indirect method of wetting/spraying.” This clause in the regulations elaborates, “The material will be sprayed above the heads of the demonstrators (like rain) or, alternatively, at the legs and below.” In practice however, these guidelines are rarely, if ever, followed and those subjected to Skunk often suffer for it.

Various targets of Skunk have repeatedly reported being targeted directly by the high-pressure water cannons, with one subject, who suffered from severe bruises and broken teeth as a result of being targeted, quoted saying "Whoever it hits is flung a few meters back and falls down. I took it directly in the back a few times. I’m not even talking about the horrible smell, which is indescribable, but there’s no doubt that they are trying to injure you deliberately. It leaves red marks on the body, and of course, if you fall down as a result, you get beaten." He continued “When it hits you, it feels like a knife is stabbing you. I weigh 110 kilos [240 pounds], and when I sat on the street, the spray lifted me off the ground a few times. I’m not surprised that it’s an Israeli invention – Israelis are skilled at doing harm and at coming up with violent instruments.”

Investigations by Israeli police and army medical teams in the past also indicated that the excessive coughing caused by exposure can result in suffocation; as a result, IDF and security forces dispensing Skunk are required to wear a mouth-and-nose mask with a filter.

Remediation

Skunk's manufacturer, Odortec, makes a special soap available to security forces that have purchased its product (including the IDF and various American police forces) that is specially formulated to neutralize the odor should it backfire or incidentally mist the attackers, however this soap is not available for purchase to the general public. However, one press photographer who was sprayed with Skunk has claimed that ketchup can be used to decrease the potency of the stench, and that washing affected body parts, items, or surfaces with tomato ketchup can at least make the smell "fainter".

For residents of the United States and other western countries, some options for remediation of the stench include some of the following:

• Shampoos specially formulated for the removal of skunk odor (from the animal, not the product) from sprayed pets, such as this dog skunk shampoo for use on the hair or body,
• A combined degreaser and odor remover for applying to affected surfaces,
• An enzymatic odor removal solution like CloroxPro for the worst cases, though care should be used if coming into extended contact with the human body.

Companies involved in production

While Skunk itself is developed and sold by Israeli company Odortec, the mobilized high-pressure water cannons used by the IDF and Israeli police to spray Skunk at Palestinian civilians and pro-Palestinian demonstrators are based on a chassis designed by the German automobile components manufacturer MAN. These chassis are then adapted into armored/reinforced military vehicles for use by the armed forces by Israeli defense contractor Beit Alfa Technologies.

Notable uses

• Israeli security forces used mobile high-pressure water cannons equipped with Skunk to attack Muslim worshipers going to Masjid Al-Aqsa at the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City in 2021.

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• B'Tselem has uploaded an authenticated video of Israeli security forces spraying a peaceful Palestinian Muslim funeral procession with Skunk in Hebron on February 24, 2012.
• In 2016, Israeli police would routinely spray schools and homes in East Jerusalem, leading to documented allergic reactions to the substance and a pregnant woman who was hospitalized after exposure. In response, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel filed legal proceedings with the Israeli attorney general in an attempt to obtain an injunction requiring the Israeli police to desist from its use, though no such order was forthcoming.
• On January 19, 2024, members of a coalition of 100 student groups at Columbia University in New York, USA were taking part in a demonstration against US support for the Israeli mass murder campaign in Gaza when they were sprayed with what the New York Police Department believes to be Skunk, resulting in eight hospitalizations. On January 23, 2024, it was reported by Rolling Stone that three of the alleged perpetrators of the chemical attack were "banned" from the school, though as Columbia did not disclose whether the perpetrators were students or not, it is unclear what that ban entails. Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, and the Columbia Chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace released an official statement on Instagram, in which they alleged that two of the perpetrators were former members of the Israeli military.

See also

• The MSDS (material safety data sheet) for Skunk from 2004 (updated in 2008), no longer available from the manufacturer's site. The MSDS does not disclose the secret ingredients and does not fully explain the pungency of the product.
• Scream, a targeted/focused noise beam also used by the IDF and Israeli security forces for "non-lethal suppression"