A California drone company whose technology aided Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza is now helping police departments across the United States surveil protesters, students, and ordinary Americans—automatically uploading millions of images to centralized evidence databases.
Immediately after October 7, Skydio, once barely a blip on the military-tech radar, shipped over 100 reconnaissance drones to the Israeli military for use in the siege of Gaza. Company leadership promised “more to come.” Since then, with Skydio maintaining an office in Israel and a partnership with DefenseSync—a military drone contractor serving as middleman to the IDF—the actual number of U.S.-built drones exported for Israeli combat missions remains unknown.
Having been field-tested on the bodies and neighborhoods of Palestinian civilians, these AI-powered quadcopters are now being launched by law enforcement agencies in nearly every major U.S. city. Skydio drones are deployed hundreds of times per day in American towns, flying over protests from Boston to Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, Cleveland, and Jacksonville—with contracts in place with over 800 agencies, more than double the number last year.
In New York City, the NYPD recently bragged about launching Skydio drones more than 20,000 times in less than a year—amounting to 55 drone deployments a day—and revealed a current arsenal of 41 Skydio units. Philadelphia police used Skydio to monitor protesters, while Yale deployed them to spy on students protesting Israeli actions in Palestine. The “No Kings” protests in New York attracted special scrutiny, with multiple deployments logged.
Federal agencies are buying in too: ICE recently bought Skydio’s X10D, which uses AI to autonomously track targets, while U.S. Customs and Border Protection acquired 33 similar units.
Propelling this nationwide surveillance boom is a new FAA waiver freeing police to fly drones beyond line of sight and over city crowds, dramatically increasing remote observation. Cities like Cincinnati predict 90% of police callouts will soon be handled by drones before officers arrive. Skydio docking stations are now positioned citywide so drones can launch, land, and charge without operators in the field.
Unlike older drones, Skydio’s UAVs operate without human pilots and can function in “GPS-denied” urban environments, using Nvidia chips for AI-powered navigation, 3D mapping, and facial imaging—feeding real-time footage directly into the Axon digital evidence system. Axon, famous for its Tasers and police weaponry, is a major Skydio backer with deep Israeli military ties.
Skydio investors include notorious Zionists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who have dumped millions into Israeli tech, and Next 47, headed by ex-IDF cyber agent Moshe Zilberstein. Funding rounds have also included Axon and Hercules Capital, whose leadership has deep Israeli-American banking ties.
In Atlanta, Skydio was chosen to outfit drone infrastructure for the city’s controversial new “Cop City.” Miami, surveilling spring breakers, and Detroit, spending $300,000 on Skydio units, show how fast these surveillance drones are being normalized in daily domestic policing.
As U.S. police and security agencies race to adopt these “battle-tested” surveillance platforms, the fusion of American policing and Israeli military tech—developed in, and field-tested upon, the people of Gaza—raises new and alarming questions about civil liberties, protest rights, and the global export of occupation technologies. Once again, Gaza is the laboratory and Americans become the next test subjects.
