Gaza, Palestine: The First Genocide Assisted by AI

Artificial intelligence is entering war with a dimension the article describes as unprecedented: autonomous systems and decision-making algorithms that could embody the law of the strongest without human mediation. If nuclear weapons reshaped conflict in the 20th century, the article argues, AI is reconfiguring 21st-century warfare even more deeply by changing not only the rules, but the balance of power itself.

The new technologies are transforming strategy and making hundreds of conventional land, naval and air capabilities obsolete, according to the article. Superiority no longer depends only on possessing better weapons. It also depends on integrating scientific advances quickly. This is the consolidation of what the article calls “intelligent warfare,” combining AI, big data and cognitive operations to overpower an adversary.

Gaza, the article says, has become the main testing ground for this model. It describes the territory as the site of one of the deadliest campaigns of the 21st century and calls it “the first genocide assisted by AI in history.” The article says a technological ecosystem of large language models, mass surveillance and target-selection algorithms has automated and accelerated the machinery of killing to industrial levels.

The first system discussed is Habsora, or The Gospel. It processes surveillance data, satellite images, intelligence signals and drone reports to recommend fixed military targets, including buildings, rocket launchers, command posts and homes of alleged militants. The article says human analysts had produced 50 to 100 targets a day, while Israel identified 12,000 targets in Gaza during the first weeks of the conflict using the system.

Lavender, developed by the secretive Unit 8200, is described as a mass AI database that assigns a risk score from 1 to 100 to virtually Gaza’s entire male population. The article says it analyzes communication patterns, social ties, movements and other available data to predict who might belong to Hamas. During the first six weeks of the offensive, it says, the system generated a list of 37,000 Palestinian men marked for killing. The article then describes Where’s Daddy? as a tool for targeted killings inside homes, tracking a flagged person and alerting operators when he enters his family residence, where the home is then authorized for bombing.