- The Israeli army is using an AI-assisted targeting system named Lavender to single out thousands of Palestinians as bombing targets.
- This has added to their extensive list of potential war crimes.
Human rights and technology experts are deeply concerned about reports of the Israeli military employing an untested and undisclosed artificial intelligence-powered database to pinpoint targets for its Gaza bombing campaign, potentially constituting “war crimes.”
According to recent reports from local publications +972 Magazine and Local Call, the Israeli army is utilising an AI-assisted targeting system named Lavender to single out thousands of Palestinians as potential bombing targets.
The database is responsible for drawing up kill lists of as many as 37,000 targets.
The Israeli intelligence officials, who chose not to be identified, informed the media that Lavender had an error rate of approximately 10 percent. Nonetheless, this did not deter the Israelis from utilizing it to expedite the identification of frequently low-ranking Hamas operatives in Gaza and subsequently targeting them for bombings,” stated Challands, on-the-ground journalist.
Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor in Middle East Studies and digital humanities at Hamid Bin Khalifa University, remarked, “It is becoming evident that the Israeli army is ‘deploying untested AI systems … to help make decisions about the life and death of civilians’.
According to Israeli publications, this approach resulted in numerous civilian casualties in Gaza.
As of Thursday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that at least 33,037 Palestinians have been killed and 75,668 wounded in Israeli assaults since October 7.
