In Umm al-Fahm, Sky News caught Israeli security's latest non-lethal crowd dispersal techniques in action.
Bouncing blue balls.
Look closely at the police line towards the left to spot it. A bouncing rubber ball bullet hurtles towards the stone throwers. It is a rubber plastic ball. They are coloured blue and fired up in the air making them hard to see coming with the sky behind. Plenty of top spin guarantees they come back down to Earth, bounce and then into the target, in this case an Israeli Arab youth who yowls in pain.
They are fired at a relatively low velocity but hurt like hell when they hit you. Colleagues who have also been hit while trying to cover clashes say they are disconcerting because the seem to come from nowhere and leave a bruise and a stinging agony.
Bouncing blue balls follow in the footsteps of other Israeli R&D, most notably The Skunk, The Scream, sand bullets, and now out-of-favor paintball guns.
