As civilian casualties continue to mount in the wartorn Gaza Strip, reports of Israel’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) in its targeting of Hamas militants are facing increasing scrutiny. A report by the Israeli outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call earlier this month said that Israeli forces had relied heavily on two AI tools so far in the conflict — “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy.”
While “Lavender” identifies suspected Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants and their homes, “Where’s Daddy” tracks these targets and informs Israeli forces when they return home, per the report, which cites six Israeli intelligence officers who had used AI systems for operations in Gaza, including “Where’s Daddy?”
“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” one of the officers told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations,” they added.
Sorry, “collateral damage” wasn’t a good enough excuse for the US military and it’s definitely not a good enough excuse for the Israeli military either. The US struck a hospital in Kunduz fully aware of what it was and it caused enough of an incident that several coalition nations pulled out of Afghanistan rather than be involved. The US very nearly lost a LOT of its allies over that, and that was AFTER extensive investigation and compensation. Why should we hold Israel, a first-world military by any metric, to a lower standard than how we hold our own army?
If you see a hospital is being used as a military staging area, you don’t just level the goddamn place. You don’t say “well they COULD HAVE been there” (by the way, that’s the exact same justification for the Kunduz airstrike). You don’t look at it and say “well collateral damage and all”. You rework your plan. You find a way to minimize casualties, whether that’s a strike team or simply bypassing that target entirely because it’s way too risky to civilians. It’s a HOSPITAL, you can’t say “you need to evac because we’re bombing this place” - there are people who are too sick to move, equipment that CAN’T, and it’d be a huge operation to move everyone in a hospital on 24 hours’ notice.
As to “why aren’t they just carpet bombing the place”, it’s because half of the reason for this genocide is lebensraum - you’ll notice that there’s been a decent number of Israeli real estate firms that have caught flak for selling land in newly-emptied Gaza areas.