Australia’s government awards rich contracts to Israeli drone maker Rafael, which skite to investors about killing Palestinians. Stephanie Tran reports.
Israeli weapons manufacturer Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has posted a video showing an unarmed man being stalked and killed by a drone in Gaza, using the footage to advertise the weapon responsible for his death.
The video, posted to the company’s official account on X, shows a Spike Firefly loitering munition drone as it hovers above a man walking alone through the rubble of a heavily bombed area. The drone silently tracks the man before detonating directly above him, killing him instantly.
Meanwhile, a young Palestinian girl, Hala, was executed yesterday with a bullet to the the head fired by a quadcopter drone. It is even more grotesque that Israeli weapons manufacturers are crowing about their human testing labs – which are the killing fields of Gaza.
The Spike Firefly drone, first unveiled by Rafael in 2018, is a lightweight, soldier-deployed loitering munition designed for urban combat. Weighing just three kilograms, the drone is launched from a canister and can fly silently above a target for up to 15 minutes before striking with high precision.
The drone can be operated remotely with a tablet, and its camera feed allows operators to stalk targets in real time.
According to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israel has increasingly relied on drones like the Firefly to kill civilians in Gaza since October 7, 2023, with quadcopters being deployed in densely populated residential areas and refugee camps. Their report documents multiple instances of drones being used to assassinate individuals in violation of international humanitarian law.
Australia’s financial and military ties to Rafael
Despite mounting evidence that Rafael is complicit in war crimes, the Australian government continues to deepen its commercial and military ties with the company.
Data from Austender reveals that since 2007, the Department of Defence has awarded Rafael-linked entities over $168 million in contracts.
Of this, $42 million went directly to Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and $126 million to Varley Rafael, a joint venture launched in 2018 by then Defence Minister Christopher Pyne between Rafael and the Australian engineering firm Varley Group.
The most significant of these is a 15-year missile procurement contract awarded in 2023, worth $108 million. The contract was originally priced at $50 million but was amended and expanded in October 2024, raising further concerns about the government’s ongoing commitment to the company amid the genocide in Gaza.
Beyond procurement, Rafael is also embedded in Australia’s military research ecosystem. The company is a partner in the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) enterprise, a cornerstone of the AUKUS defence initiative.
Through this program, Rafael is working with American firm General Atomics to develop a deep-strike missile. The missile system “will be built in the US for delivery to US military customers to support a variety of critical Department of Defence and coalition partners’ precision fires missions”.
MWM put questions to the Department of Defence about its ongoing collaboration with Rafael and whether the government would consider suspending contracts in light of the company’s apparent complicity in war crimes.
The Department did not respond to the request for comment.
“Snuff videos as a sales pitch”
Greens Senator David Shoebridge, who has long called for an end to Australian arms trade with Israel, condemned the video and the government’s silence.
“It’s obscene that we’re seeing weapons companies that are profiting from a genocide sharing snuff videos as part of their sales pitch,” he told Michael West Media. “It’s even more obscene that the Australian government is buying weapons from these companies.”
Shoebridge has previously raised concerns about Rafael’s marketing practices. At the 2024 Indian Ocean Defence & Security Conference in Perth, he witnessed the company using drone footage showing images of Israeli attacks in Gaza, Yemen and Lebanon being used to promote Israeli weapons systems.
Israeli arms manufacturers use the fact that they have tested their weapons on Palestinians as a sales pitch.
I saw this last year at a ‘defence’ conference in Perth.
Rafael was selling to the Australian Government by showing images of Israeli attacks in Gaza, Yemen and Lebanon
— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) July 14, 2025
Breaches of International Law
Under international human rights law, the extrajudicial execution of civilians constitutes a grave violation of the right to life. These acts are strictly prohibited under the Geneva Conventions and are prosecutable as war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
In her March 2024 report “Anatomy of a Genocide”, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, concluded that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since 7 October 2023 bears the hallmarks of genocide.
The report, presented to the UN Human Rights Council, documents a deliberate pattern of attacks on civilians, the systematic destruction of infrastructure essential to life, and the obstruction of humanitarian aid, actions that violate humanitarian law.
Albanese explicitly condemned the Israeli military’s use of advanced weaponry, including drones, to indiscriminately “target the Palestinian population as a whole”. These attacks, Albanese states, “cannot be proportionate and are always unlawful”.
As Albanese notes in her most recent report, “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide”, the commodification of Palestinian death for weapons sales is part of a broader militarised economy in which violence against civilians is used to “battle test” weapons.
She highlighted the role of weapons manufacturers in enabling and profiting from these attacks, calling for international accountability not only for states but also for the companies complicit in atrocities. This convergence of state violence and corporate profit, she warns, reflects “an economy of occupation turned genocidal”.
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Stephanie is a journalist and has a law/journalism degree. She was a finalist for the 2021 Walkley Student Journalist of the Year Award and the winner of the 2021 Democracy's Watchdogs Award for Student Investigative Reporting.