The Sky is Not Ours

The buzz of drones overhead has become part of daily life in South Lebanon, an ever-present reminder of the danger that looms from the sky.

The distressing noise is meant to remind us that even the simplest acts — a farmer tending his land, a shepherd guiding his flock, a beekeeper checking on hives, or someone repairing a broken water pipe — can be deemed suspicious. Children who once played freely on the hilltops no longer roam outside, and even something as innocent as sitting beneath a tree for a picnic can carry risk.

At any moment, settlers who claim the sky as theirs can issue a death sentence with a single click.

Under Constant Watch

Not that fighter jets are any less worrisome; their presence is just as dangerous, but it is usually fleeting, and they won’t become your shadow.

Drones, on the other hand, linger. They hover over a community day after day, their operators often sitting hundreds of kilometers away from the people they target. From that safe distance, killing becomes like a video game. Humans are reduced to moving dots on a screen, data to be processed and categorized. With the press of a button, lives are erased. This physical distance strips away hesitation, making killing impersonal and detached.

The dehumanization of Indigenous people is the very foundation of colonialism, but drones push it to a new extreme. A settler intent on killing will do so whether seated in a cockpit or far from the target, yet a pilot physically in an aircraft, flying over their victims, is more directly engaged in the act. They face at least some degree of risk and exposure — factors that may influence their decisions in ways remote drone operators never have to confront.

What makes drones even more insidious is that their mission doesn’t end with killing; they stalk. They are instruments of mass surveillance, tracking our every gesture through facial recognition systems and AI-driven cameras. They gather intelligence by monitoring daily routines, mapping movement patterns, recording when and where people go, and who they meet. All of this is compiled into vast databases, cross- referenced, and analyzed by algorithms coded by the colonizer.

Psychological Warfare

When they are not killing, drones serve another purpose: to erode morale and crush the spirit. Their constant buzzing seeps into the nervous system, triggering a state of continuous alertness—heart racing, muscles tensed, sleep disrupted. Even in moments of silence, the sound haunts the mind, keeping the body on edge and creating an unrelenting atmosphere of distress from which there is no escape.

More than anything, these drones are instruments of psychological warfare. At times, they hover low, rattling bedroom windows, peering into homes, stripping away any sense of privacy. In some cases, they use audio to address people directly, threatening them, hurling insults, or mocking them. The tactic is clear: to remind everyone that the occupier’s watch is inescapable, that they can hunt you anywhere, at any time, and make life simply unbearable.

Lest we forget, there were the chilling reports from the Nuseirat Camp in central Gaza: Israeli drones blaring the cries of infants to lure people out. Believing a child was in danger, residents would rush to find the source, only to be targeted and killed by the drone.

Controlling Movement

In Gaza, drones have been used near aid centers, tents, and hospitals to enforce invisible lines that Palestinians cannot cross. These no-go zones are placed in areas Israel seeks to empty, making drones tools of displacement. They dictate movement from above as a method of ethnic cleansing.

The threat is persistent. When people live in constant fear that crossing an unseen boundary could mean instant death, their movement gradually shrinks. Fewer people visit markets, seasonal harvests go uncollected, and travel between villages stops altogether. This enforced immobility erodes any sense of normalcy, weakening social bonds as neighbors begin to avoid one another.

Eroding Trust

In South Lebanon, kinship is the backbone of community life. Families, neighbors, and friends rely on each other for collective work, mutual aid, and emotional support. But drones corrode that trust, sowing doubt between neighbors and making people question even those they have known all their lives. The fear of being linked to someone under surveillance fuels paranoia and drives people into isolation. Cooperative work in the fields stops, and gatherings fade away. Over time, these bonds dissolve, as people fear that simply being near a loved one could make them the next target.

This also disrupts cultural practices that have evolved over thousands of years in relationship with the land; traditions rooted in collectivity and intertwined with the rhythms of the seasons. These include the shared labor of picking olives, making mouneh, organizing village festivals, and even the simple act of gathering over coffee. When drones confine people indoors, they sever the cultural and social lifelines that have held communities together.

Alienation from the Land

The goal is that, over time, even when the drone is not killing, the relationship between people and land becomes defined by fear rather than trust. The interconnectedness between Indigenous communities and their territory is eroded as they are forced to distance themselves from it for survival. This is colonialism’s gradual alienation: when you are made to feel like a stranger in the very land that bore you. You begin to detach from the geography that holds your identity, weakening the foundations of your existence.

Alongside this alienation, the ecological consequences remain unknown. How the persistent drone buzzing affects wildlife, ecosystems, and biodiversity has yet to be studied.