The horrific number of Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli airstrikes since the beginning of the latest aggression on Gaza, starting on October 7 shed light on Israel’s increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) to select its targets.
As Israel renewed its strikes on Friday, after a seven-day truce, almost 300 Palestinians have already been killed, adding to the over 15,000 Palestinians killed in the first phase of the war.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 70 percent of the casualties are women and children.
AI Kill Lists
An investigation carried out jointly by the Israeli-Palestinian newspaper +972 Magazine and the Hebrew publication Local Call revealed that,
“the Israeli army’s expanded authorization for bombing non-military targets (..) and the use of an artificial intelligence system to generate more potential targets than ever before, appear to have contributed to the destructive nature of the initial stages of Israel’s current war on the Gaza Strip”.
The investigation was reportedly based on “conversations with seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community (…) in addition to Palestinian testimonies, data, and documentation from the Gaza Strip, and official statements by the IDF Spokesperson and other Israeli state institutions.”
The indiscriminate bombing, according to the report, is “mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society.”
According to a source, this practice is aimed “to ‘create a shock’ that, among other things, will reverberate powerfully and ‘lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas’.”
Several sources, who spoke with the two outlets on the condition of anonymity, “confirmed that the Israeli army has files on the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza – including homes – which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target”.
A horrific massacre was committed by Israel in the Shujaeiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City.
Israeli aircraft destroyed more than 50 residential buildings.
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— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) December 2, 2023
No Accidents
Another source asserted that “nothing happens by accident”. The source reportedly said that “when a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit (another) target.”
“We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”
‘The Gospel’
The investigation blames a large number of civilian targets to a particular AI system called ‘Habsora’ (The Gospel).
“This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a ‘mass assassination factory’,” +972 reported.
One of the sources explained that ‘The Gospel’ “processes enormous amounts of data that ‘tens of thousands of intelligence officers could not process’.
This system, according to a former Israeli intelligence officer, “enables the (Israeli) army to run a ‘mass assassination factory,’ in which the ‘emphasis is on quantity and not on quality.’
“Five different sources confirmed that the number of civilians who may be killed in attacks on private residences is known in advance to Israeli intelligence, and appears clearly in the target file under the category of ‘collateral damage,” the report said.
One of the sources specified that “When the general directive becomes ‘Collateral Damage 5,’ that means we are authorized to strike all targets that will kill five or less civilians — we can act on all target files that are five or less.”
GOVERNMENT MEDIA OFFICE: Israeli aircraft destroyed more than 50 residential buildings and houses in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of the Gaza Strip.
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— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) December 2, 2023
(The Palestine Chronicle)
