The company designs, manufactures and markets security products in use by police and military forces worldwide. CSI is one the largest suppliers of tear gas used to repress demonstrations on a global scale.
The company is a major supplier of crowd control weapons, especially tear gas, to the Israeli police and military.
In September 2021, the company was awarded a 4 million NIS Israeli police contract for the supply of 1.5 gas bullets. These gas bullets require a special launcher that’s manufactured by the company and already in police use.
In May 2021, the Israeli police contacted Combined System Inc.’s Israeli distributor, MR Hunter, for the purchase of demonstration dispersion equipment worth 13 million and 300 NIS. In the tender, the Israeli police notes its need to restock CSI equipment due to their wide use during the repression of the Palestinian May uprising. The company was exempted from a tender as it’s already a supplier of these equipment.
Activists from Majd Al-Krum, a Palestinian town north of Israel, documented the use of CSI manufactured tear gas during Israeli police crackdown on demonstrators, May 2021.
In 2019, the company was also awarded a 2 million and 600 NIS police contract for the supply of VENOM gas and launcher. The VENOM grenade launcher delivers flash and sound, smoke obscuration, irritant, and blunt trauma effects. In May 2013, seven VENOM grenades were documented being shot from an Israeli army vehicle in Bitonia.
In a response to a Freedom of Information request in March 2020, the Israeli military confirmed their use of a number of CSI manufactured tear gas in the West Bank, including: CS 400 grenades and CSI 40 mm that’s thrown from a launcher. These were used against Palestinians in Aida refugee camp, Bethlehem.
The company also provided the Israeli police with rubber coated bullets, products that cause severe injuries and even death.
On several occasions, CSI equipment led to the death of Palestinians and caused severe injuries to others. For more, check out our report Proven Effective: Crowd Control Weapons in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Combined Systems tear gas was exported into Egypt through Israel during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. Amnesty International documented three shipments of tear gas from CSI (in the U.S.) to Egypt, which were approved by the U.S. State Department, despite the Egyptian security forces’ record of using tear gas to kill and injure protesters. CSI tear gas was also used by US police during the Ferguson uprising. CSI also sells to prisons in the US.
More information about CSI and other crowd control companies and weapons can be found in Who Profit’s report: Proven Effective: Crowd Control Weapons in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
