{"id":250133,"date":"2023-12-11T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=250133"},"modified":"2023-12-09T09:18:57","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T09:18:57","slug":"how-israel-uses-an-ai-genocide-program-to-obliterate-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/12\/how-israel-uses-an-ai-genocide-program-to-obliterate-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"How Israel Uses an AI Genocide Program to Obliterate Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 Dec 2023<\/em> – It should already have been evident from the scale of death and destruction inflicted on Gaza<\/a> over the past eight weeks that Israel was implementing a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against Palestinians in the besieged enclave.<\/p>\n

Now Israeli whistleblowers have provided details of how these crimes against humanity are being carried out \u2013 and how they are being rationalised internally within Israel\u2019s military and political echelons.<\/p>\n

An extraordinary series of testimonies jointly published by the Israel-based publications 972 and Local Call last week established that the huge death toll of Palestinian civilians is, in fact, integral<\/a> to Israel\u2019s war aims, not an unfortunate side effect.<\/p>\n

The known dead so far are estimated at almost 16,000, with a further 6,000 missing, presumably crushed under rubble. Two-thirds of those killed by Israel are women and children.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, during an earlier attack on Gaza, Israeli military officials admitted for the first time that a computer was supplying them with potential targets. The intention appears to have been to bypass the restraints imposed by human assessments of likely casualties by outsourcing the killings to a machine.<\/p>\n

The whistleblowers confirm that, given new, generous parameters of who and what can be attacked, the artificial intelligence system, called \u201cGospel\u201d, is generating lists of targets so rapidly the military cannot keep up.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s inputs are now so broad that they allow the bombing without warning of high-rise apartment blocks, so long as it can be claimed that one person residing there is believed to have a connection to Hamas.<\/p>\n

As Hamas not only has a military wing but runs the enclave\u2019s government, the new policy potentially widens the circle of targets to include civil servants, police, health workers, educators, journalists and aid workers.<\/p>\n

That helps explain how, according to United Nations figures, some 100,000 homes in Gaza have been levelled or made uninhabitable and at least 1.7 million Palestinians displaced, some three-quarters of the enclave\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Basic survival<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The revelations definitively give the lie to claims by western politicians, such as US President Joe Biden, UK\u00a0Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer, that Israel is simply defending itself and trying to avoid civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

In a report last Friday, the Guardian corroborated Israel\u2019s reliance on the Gospel computing system. The paper quoted a former White House official familiar with the Pentagon\u2019s development of autonomous offensive systems as stating that Israel\u2019s no-holds-barred AI war on Gaza was an \u201cimportant moment<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The official added: \u201cOther states are going to be watching and learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most significant of the disclosures from current and former Israeli officials who have spoken to 972 and Local Call is the fact that Israel is aware its many thousands of air strikes on Gaza\u2019s residential areas are having a minimal impact on the armed wing of Hamas.<\/p>\n

This contrasts with public declarations that Israel is seeking to eradicate the group.<\/p>\n

Even according to the Israeli military\u2019s own claims, likely based on the new, much broader definition of who counts as a Hamas target, Israel has killed between 1,000 and 3,000 \u201coperatives\u201d \u2013 meaning that, even by Israel\u2019s assessment, civilians comprise between 85 and 95 per cent of those dead from its bombing campaigns.<\/p>\n

This is not accidental, according to the sources.<\/p>\n

Israel is continuing long-standing military policies towards Gaza \u2013 principally the so-called Dahiya doctrine<\/a>, sometimes known as \u201cmowing the lawn<\/a>\u201d \u2013 but has changed the focus to allow for far greater bloodshed among civilians.<\/p>\n

The doctrine, which has guided Israel\u2019s repeated attacks on Gaza over the last 15 years, is named after the destruction of an entire neighbourhood of Beirut in Israel\u2019s war on Lebanon in 2006.<\/p>\n

The doctrine has two key premises: that laying waste to an enemy area will force the population to concentrate on basic survival rather than resistance; and in the longer term it will encourage ordinary people to rise up against their rulers.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, the Dahiya doctrine was chiefly about the destruction of infrastructure. At least officially, given the strictures of international law, Israel claimed it issued advance warnings. That was supposed to give civilians in the targeted area time to evacuate.<\/p>\n

According to military officials, this notice period has largely ended, placing civilians directly in Israel\u2019s crosshairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not surgical\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A source explained the effects of the new policy to 972: \u201cThe numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [permitted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior [Hamas] official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

A former military intelligence official said the policy was designed to make most of Gaza\u2019s infrastructure legitimate targets: \u201cHamas is everywhere in Gaza; there is no building that does not have something of Hamas in it, so if you want to find a way to turn a high-rise into a target, you will be able to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to these sources, given that Hamas\u2019 armed wing is underground in tunnels, Israel has struggled to identify primary targets, such as weapons sites, armed cells and headquarters.<\/p>\n

Instead, it has focused on what it calls \u201cpower targets\u201d \u2013 or more accurately, symbolic targets \u2013 such as high-rise buildings and residential towers in urban areas, as well as public buildings such as universities, banks, government offices, hospitals and mosques.<\/p>\n

These attacks, say the sources, are seen as a \u201cmeans that allows damage to civil society\u201d, weakening the ability of the society to organise and function, and families to subsist. According to 972, the former Israeli officials it spoke to \u201cunderstood, some explicitly and some implicitly, that damage to civilians is the real purpose of these attacks\u201d.<\/p>\n

Referring to the high death toll among civilians, another source stated: \u201cEverything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five different sources told 972 that Israel had compiled files on tens of thousands of private homes and apartments in Gaza where low-level Hamas members live. The homes, as well as everyone who lives in them, were viewed as a legitimate target as soon as a Hamas-linked person entered the building.<\/p>\n

One noted: \u201cHamas members who don\u2019t really matter for anything live in homes across Gaza. So they mark the home and bomb the house and kill everyone there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another source observed of this practice that its equivalent would be for Hamas to bomb \u201call the private residences of our families when [Israeli soldiers] go back to sleep at home on the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

An official who had overseen previous attacks on Gaza said Israel would claim one floor in a high-rise was serving as the office of a Hamas or Islamic Jihad spokesman to justify levelling the building. \u201cI understood that the floor is an excuse that allows the army to cause a lot of destruction in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the truth were known about what Israel was doing, the source added, \u201cthis would itself be seen as terrorism. So they do not say it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another stated that Israel\u2019s aim was to inflict maximum damage rather than hit the part of the building associated with Hamas. \u201cIt was also possible to hit that specific target with more accurate weaponry. The bottom line is that they knocked down a high-rise for the sake of knocking down a high-rise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Don\u2019t be fooled. Biden is fully signed up to genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n

My latest article here: https:\/\/t.co\/cRfBfYf9RX<\/a><\/p>\n

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 15, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n