‘Bomb Gaza’: A Google Play App Lets Users Carry Out Israeli Air Strikes On Palestinians

You can feed your bloodlust with an app. Remember when the picture of Israelis sitting on a hilltop cheering on the bombs dropping on Gaza, while eating popcorn circulated? Well now you can play out your longing for war at home because there’s an app for that.

The Independent reports, “Google is facing criticism for continuing to allow Android mobile users to download a game called “Bomb Gaza”, in which players are required to ‘drop bombs and avoid killing citizens’.”

The app was uploaded on July 29th and has been installed up to 1,000 times and received at least one report as “inappropriate”.

On Monday evening, the game was no longer available on Google Play.

Via The Independent:

According to the game’s description and a series of screenshots, users gain points by controlling aircraft marked with Israeli flags as they drop bombs on cartoon Hamas militants.

It comes as more than 1,800 Palestinians have been killed in the ongoing Gaza conflict. Israel has confirmed that 64 of its soldiers have died in combat, while three civilians have been killed by cross-border shelling from Gaza.

There are others. The “Iron Dome” app’s description reads,  “Terrorists in a neighboring town are attacking your city, use interceptor rockets, cluster bombs, homing missles and more to stop them and save your population.”

One of the reviews for Iron Dome reads, “Tragic. Pathetic. Sickening. What an utterly depressing world we live in when people make something like this. Anyone playing this is a primitive.”

A Google spokesman said that the company does not comment on specific apps, but that it “remove[s] apps from Google Play that violate our policies.”

War is not a game.

H/T: My buddy @TomCInMidlife with thanks.

D.B. Hirsch

D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.