By Abdel-Raouf Arnaut
JERUSALEM
On a street corner in East Jerusalem's northern town of Shuafat, a group of Israeli soldiers mill around a newly-installed, makeshift tent in which surveillance equipment and video monitors receive images sent by cameras affixed to a massive hot air balloon hovering over the town.
The tent, which had been a mystery to local residents since it was installed on Wednesday, acts as a command-and-control room for Israel's latest technique for monitoring incidents of stone-throwing by Palestinians.
Near the tent, Israeli police vehicles remain on standby to deploy to any area in which an act of stone-throwing is spotted by the balloon's cameras.
Earlier this week, Israeli police said they had begun implementing a new plan to curb stone-throwing in occupied East Jerusalem – a tactic that Israelis refer to as the "silent intifada," Arabic for "uprising."
The new security plan, according to the Israeli police, relies on "new technology to monitor and capture the incidents," as well as the deployment of secret police units in East Jerusalem.
On Thursday, Israeli authorities demonstrated the security plan's first achievement: a video circulated on social media showed Israeli police chasing three Palestinian boys down Shuafat's alleyways after the latter had thrown stones at the town's light rail train, which is frequently used by Jewish settlers.
The footage, released by Israeli authorities, was purportedly captured by the hot air balloon's cameras and referred to Israeli police who rushed to the scene.
The Israeli army website described the hot air balloons as "one of the advanced techniques used to gather information and monitor terrorist activities in real-time."
The hot air balloons can remain in the sky for long periods of time while operating on much less fuel than that required for surveillance aircraft, the Israeli army said.
The hot air balloons, the army added, were also being used to monitor activity around East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, which has seen sustained protests by Palestinians over recent Israeli bans on the entry of Muslim worshippers under 50 into the holy site.
The abduction and murder in early July of a Palestinian teenager in Shuafat by Israeli settlers has led to mounting tension – and occasional confrontations – between Palestinian residents and Israeli troops.
Such confrontations intensified following Israel's recent 51-day military onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which ended on August 26.
The situation in East Jerusalem has been further aggravated by frequent intrusions by groups of extremist Jewish settlers into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, where they can be seen performing Talmudic rituals.
Frequent Palestinian stone-throwing, meanwhile, has continued to ruffle the feathers of Israeli officialdom.
In August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that Israeli police had been ordered to deal firmly with Palestinian stone-throwers, with Netanyahu saying the practice would "not be tolerated."
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