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Skunk — a foul-smelling liquid first sprayed on Palestinian protesters as a form of crowd control in 2008 — has become one of the characteristic scents of the Israeli occupation. Created by the Israeli research and development firm Odortec, Skunk has the “viscosity of water” and “can be sprayed over a large area using a standard water cannon,” Odortec says on its website.  After Skunk makes contact with a person or object, the putrid stench can last for days and can cause nausea and vomiting. The smell is overpowering, similar to a skunk’s spray but worse, smelling as if it has been mixed with raw sewage, sulfur and rotting animal corpses.

Promoted as a nonlethal tool for crowd control, Skunk has been used by Israeli forces at Palestinian demonstrations for the past seven years. Videos show the liquid being used during protests, on private Palestinian homes and even at a funeral procession in the West Bank. An Israel Defense Forces representative told Al Jazeera that Skunk minimizes “the necessity for the use of live ammunition” and “is a well-known and accepted measure that is in line with international standards and used by many countries throughout the world.” But some activists and organizations, including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, have criticized the Israeli military for allegedly using Skunk against individuals and structures unassociated with protests, making neighborhoods stink for days. Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said Israeli forces regularly hose down Palestinian homes with Skunk, raising suspicions that the practice is used as a punitive measure — especially against residents in villages that routinely hold protests against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

Because of its putrid smell and the confidentiality surrounding its composition — the BBC revealed yeast and baking powder are among the ingredients — rumors abound among Palestinians as to what is in Skunk.

It has been described as smelling like “a chunk of rotting corpse from a stagnant sewer” placed in a blender. It is the foul-smelling liquid the “skunk” truck, one of Israel’s weapons of occupation and oppression, routinely sprays at Palestinians. One of these skunk trucks can be seen in the video above spraying a jet of the disgusting liquid in eastern occupied Jerusalem on Saturday. “Apart from the repulsive nausea-inducing stench, the skunk liquid can cause pain and redness if it comes into contact with eyes, irritation if it comes into contact with skin and if swallowed can cause abdominal pain requiring medical treatment,” according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

As can be seen in the video, the skunk truck appears to be spraying a jet of its foul liquid over a wide area and at houses, an act that can have no effect other than to further provoke and aggravate the Palestinian victims of the Israeli occupation. On 26 August, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, a local Jerusalem news agency, reported that Israeli occupation forces had severely escalated their use of skunk trucks over the last two months. Jerusalemites complained about the routine and indiscriminate spraying of the foul liquid at their homes, cars and businesses and said that the occupation has done this with increasing frequency since the 2 July kidnapping and murder by Israeli settlers of the Jerusalemite teenager Muhammad Abu Khudair.

On 10 August, ACRI said it had contacted the commander of Jerusalem’s occupation police “to request that he urgently clarify the details” of Israel’s use of the substance. “Witness testimony reveals that the police indiscriminately sprayed the skunk liquid towards houses, people, restaurants brimming with people and in crowded streets, causing harm to innocent residents,” ACRI said. “Evidence suggests that in some cases the skunk repellent was arbitrarily used with no apparent justification and in the absence of any public disturbances.” It’s no wonder Palestinians were so delighted to see at least one Israeli skunk truck put out of action.