2021 Israel–Palestine crisis

Gaza update: the questionable precision and ethics of Israel’s AI warfare machine

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Islamic Jihad, Torture, Hamas, Crime, Algorithm, Pressure, Quds Force, Stuxnet, Intelligence, University, White, Benjamin Netanyahu, School, IDF, Artificial intelligence, Local call, History, Rest, AI, Human, University College Dublin, Milgram, RMIT University, The Jerusalem Post, 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, Atmosphere, Guardian, International law, Defense, Medical device

The IDF says it has been working on information gleaned from questioning Palestinian fighters captured in the fighting.

Key Points: 
  • The IDF says it has been working on information gleaned from questioning Palestinian fighters captured in the fighting.
  • According to a report in the Jerusalem Post on April 17, the Palestinian fighters were hiding out in schools in the area.
  • The investigation, by online Israeli magazines +927 and Local Call examined the use of an AI programme called “Lavender”.
  • It’s important to note that the IDF is not the only military to be working with AI in this way.
  • But one function of the way the IDF is harnessing Lavender in this current conflict is its use alongside other systems.
  • Read more:
    Israel accused of using AI to target thousands in Gaza, as killer algorithms outpace international law

The Iranian dimension

  • Away from the charnel house that is the Gaza Strip, the focus has been on the aftermath of Israel’s strike on the Iranian embassy in Baghdad on April 1.
  • As is his wont, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed revenge, declaring: “The Zionist regime will be punished by the hands of our brave men.
  • And this was very much how it was to turn out when Iran’s drones and missiles flew last weekend.
  • Read more:
    Could Israel's strike against the Iranian embassy in Damascus escalate into a wider regional war?
  • Read more:
    Why Iran's failed attack on Israel may well turn out to be a strategic success

The nuclear option?


One of the possibilities being widely canvassed is that Israel could mount some kind of attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. This has been revitalised in the years since Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama.

  • He walks us through the history of Iran’s nuclear programme, a story littered with the bodies of Iranian nuclear scientists and the wreckage of its nuclear facilities thanks to fiendish cyberattacks such as the Stuxnet virus developed by Israel and the US that was launched against Iran in 2010.
  • Since Trump quit the nuclear deal, Iran has gone full-steam ahead in ramping up its nuclear weapons programme, while reportedly hiding its key installations in deep underground bunkers that are thought impossible to destroy from the air.