According to the IDF spokesperson, by November 10, during the first 35 days of fighting, Israel attacked a total of 15,000 targets in Gaza. Based on multiple sources, this number is very high compared to the four previous major operations in the Gaza Strip. During Guardian of the Walls in 2021, Israel attacked 1,500 targets in 11 days. In Protective Edge in 2014, which lasted 51 days, Israel struck between 5,266 and 6,231 targets. During Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, approximately 1,500 targets were attacked in eight days. In Cast Lead in 2008, Israel struck 3,400 targets in 22 days.
Information sources that served in previous operations also told +972 and Local Call that for 10 days in 2021 and three weeks in 2014, a rate of 100 to 200 targets per day led to a situation where the Israeli Air Force no longer had military-value targets. So why, after almost two months, has the Israeli army still not run out of targets in the current war?
The answer may lie in a statement made by an IDF spokesperson on November 2, according to which they use the artificial intelligence system Habsora (Gospel), which, according to the spokesperson, “allows the use of automated tools to produce targets at a rapid pace and operates by enhancing accurate and high-quality intelligence material according to operational needs.”
In the statement, a senior intelligence services official said that thanks to Habsora, targets for precision strikes are created “causing great damage to the enemy and minimal damage to non-combatants. Hamas agents have no immunity – no matter where they hide.”
According to sources from the intelligence services, Habsora produces, among other things, automated recommendations for attacks on private residences where individuals suspected of being members of Hamas or the Islamic Jihad live. Subsequently, Israel carries out large-scale assassination operations by means of intense bombing of these residences.
Habsora, explained one of the sources, processes massive amounts of data that “tens of thousands of intelligence officers could not process,” and suggests bombing locations in real time. Because most senior Hamas officials retreat into underground tunnels at the start of every military operation, the sources say, using a system like Habsora makes it possible to locate and attack the homes of relatively lower-ranking members.
A former intelligence officer explained that the Habsora system allows the army to operate a “mass murder factory,” where “the emphasis is placed on quantity and not on quality.” A human eye “will examine the targets before each attack, but does not need to spend much time on them.” Given that Israel estimates there are approximately 30,000 Hamas members in Gaza, and they are all marked for death, the number of potential targets is enormous.
In 2019, the Israeli army created a new center aimed at using artificial intelligence to accelerate target creation. “The target management department is a unit that includes hundreds of officers and soldiers and is based on artificial intelligence capabilities,” stated former IDF chief of staff Aviv Kochavi in an in-depth interview with Ynet earlier this year.
“It’s a machine that, with the help of artificial intelligence, processes a lot of data better and faster than any human and converts it into targets for attack,” Kochavi continued. “The result was that in Operation Guardian of the Walls [2021], from the moment this machine was activated, it created 100 new targets every day. You see, in the past there were times in Gaza when we created 50 targets per year. And here the machine produced 100 targets within one day.”
“We prepare the targets automatically and work according to a checklist,” stated one of the sources who worked at the new administrative target directorate to +972 and Local Call. “It’s really like a factory. We work quickly and there’s no time to delve into the target. The perception is that we are judged according to how many targets we manage to create.”
A senior military official in charge of the target bank told the Jerusalem Post earlier this year that thanks to the army’s artificial intelligence systems, for the first time the army can create new targets at a faster rate than it attacks them. Another source stated that the effort to automatically generate a large number of targets constitutes a practical implementation of the Dahiya doctrine. [The doctrine took its name from the Dahiya neighborhood of Beirut, which was almost flattened by the Israeli army in 2006. According to it, in warfare against guerrilla organizations, Israel must use disproportionate and overwhelming force targeting civilian and governmental infrastructures in order to impose deterrence and force the hostile population to pressure the organizations to end their attacks.]
Automated systems such as Habsora thus significantly facilitated the work of Israeli intelligence officers in decision-making during military operations, including the calculation of potential casualties. Five different sources confirmed that the number of civilians who may be killed in attacks on private homes is known in advance to Israeli intelligence services and clearly appears in the target file under the category of “collateral damage”.
According to these sources, there are degrees of collateral damage, according to which the army determines whether it is possible to attack a target within a private residence. «When the general directive becomes ‘Collateral Damage 5’, this means that we are allowed to hit all targets that will kill up to five civilians – we can act on all targets that are at level five», one of the sources stated.
“In the past, we did not routinely mark the houses of younger Hamas members for bombing,” said a security services official who participated in attacks against targets during previous operations. “In my time, if the house I was targeting had the designation Collateral Damage 5, it was not always approved.” Such approval, he said, would only be granted if it was known that a senior Hamas commander lived in the house.
“From what I understand, today they can mark all houses [of any Hamas military personnel, regardless of rank],” the source continued. “There are many houses. Hamas members who don’t really matter for anything live in houses throughout Gaza. So they mark the house, bomb it, and kill everyone who is there.”
[The above excerpt is a small part of an extensive investigation into Israeli bombings in Gaza.]Source: +972 magazine, 30/11/2023
Original: https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/
Translation: Harry Tuttle