A double tap (named after the shooting technique where two shots are fired in rapid succession at the same target) is the practice of following a strike (be it bombardment such missile, air strikes, artillery shelling or detonation of explosive weapon or improvised explosive device) with a second strike several minutes later, hitting emergency responders and medical personnel rushing to the site.
[1][2][3][4] A Florida Law Review article argued that the practice likely is a war crime since it grossly violates the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which prohibit targeting civilians, the wounded, or those no longer able to continue fighting.
[5] The double-tap strikes became easier to execute with introduction of the drone warfare[citation needed] and, along with signature strikes, became the subject of debate during the US war in Afghanistan.
[6] Double-tap strikes have been used by Saudi Arabia during its military intervention in Yemen,[7][8] by the United States in Pakistan and Yemen,[9][10][11] by Israel in Gaza in 2014[12] and also during Israel-Hamas war in 2024,[13] by Russia and the Syrian government in the Syrian civil war[14][15] and by Russia and Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian War, especially in the full-scale invasion in 2022.
[16][17] This military-related article is a stub.