International attention to Israel’s sophisticated cyber capabilities and its use of AI in war was grabbed by a series of pager explosions that erupted in Lebanon in September. As of October 7, 2024, Israel is still fighting on several battle fronts, fighting battles against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and the Houthis in Yemen.
Despite the claims of the Israeli military that they conducted “precision strikes” which would ensure that the number of civilian casualties was at a minimum, the toll in Gaza has unfortunately exceeded over 41,000 civilians. This scenario raises tremendous concerns into the selection mechanism of the Israeli military on targets and if modern technology is applied in leading such operations.
Cyber Warfare:
It is Israel’s first digital war,” says Racheli Dembinsky, commander of Israel’s Centre of Computers and Information Systems. Here soldiers do not fight on battlefields but on laptops. She spoke to ET at an IT for IDF conference that emphasized partnerships between the IDF and cloud players like Microsoft, Google, or Amazon, which offer much storage and much surveillance for Palestinians.
The 8200 Unit and AI Technologies:
Israel’s elite cyber warfare unit, 8200, is very crucial in the country’s intelligence operations since it gives 90% of Israel’s intelligence reports. The unit is secretive, and its record has brought it much notoriety since the Lebanon attacks. It is known for extensive activities in signals intelligence and data mining activities.
This section exploits the use of an AI system called Lavender:
Which processes a tremendous amount of data to identify a person who may be a Hamas target. Israeli officials assert that Lavender produces thousands of target lists and assigns scores to the individuals based on their perceived connection with Hamas. The drawback associated with this system is that it yields collateral damage with individuals having a minimal or no actual connection with the group.
Criticism and Human Rights Concerns:
While Israel maintains that AI-based systems like Lavender are precise in targeting better, agencies like Amnesty International have documented how Israeli military carries out careless killings and have documented instances wherein entire families were killed through bombing, reflecting that most of the attacks occurred without observing any military target nearby.
Another AI weapon, Gospel, is designed to strike structures as opposed to people as targets, consistent with the Israel Dahiya doctrine of collective deterrence through mass destruction on local authorities. Diplomats have promised it to be precision warfare, but there are claims that in reality, the military often uses nonprecision missiles instead of precision strikes that would enable civilian casualty during operations.
Wider Surveillance Systems:
There are also more surveillance technologies in use by Israel, including the “Where’s Daddy” system, which can track movement of Palestinian citizens in their homes. This gives rise to ethical concerns regarding the invasiveness of surveillance and target trapping based on the rationale of the machine-generated data.
Military Technology Collaborations:
It also boosts its military operations through massive joint ventures with tech companies. Other programs include Nimbus, estimated at $1.2 billion – a cloud services agreement with Google and Amazon. Such agreement does empower the Israeli government’s military muscle. In some of the issues, these projects have been criticized for unfairness, as workers who mentioned these issues were sacked.
Other projects include Project Sirius and applications such as Z-Tube, MapIt, and Hunter, which prove that Israel relies on advanced technology in sustaining military operations from real-time data analysis to even recognizing behavioral patterns inside Gaza.
Military activities in an AI-integrated form, popularly referred to as “digital war,” reflect the complexity of Israeli and its ethical dilemmas in today’s warfare. While technology promises greater efficiency and precision, it raises basic questions about civilian safety and accountability in a war theatre. The current humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza calls for deeper reflection on military actions using such advanced technologies in warfare.