The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have reportedly been conducting operations in the Beit Hanoun area of the northern Gaza Strip conducting raids on Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets. 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. A warning was issued to civilians to evacuate the buildings before the Israeli military moved in, the IDF said.

Meanwhile, ceasefire talks have been suspended as Israel reportedly prepares to move on Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians remain trapped. The Guardian reported this week that the IDF had confirmed buying 40,000 tents for evacuees.

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When it comes to how the IDF identifies its targets, investigative journalists in Jerusalem have published reports recently delving into the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by Israel’s military and intelligence agencies in its conduct of the war. The investigation, by online Israeli magazines 927 and Local Call examined the use of an AI programme called “Lavender”. This examines a range of data to identify possible Hamas fighters. As Elke Schwarz, a reader in political theory at Queen Mary University of London, explains, this could include social network connections and family relationships.

Schwarz writes here: “The category of what constitutes relevant features of a target can be set as stringently or as loosely as is desired. In the case of Lavender, it seems one of the key equations was ‘male equals militant’.” Shades, she says, of the US doctrine during the drone wars of Barack Obama’s administration that apparently held that “all military-aged males are potential targets”.

Needless to say, the potential for misidentification is enormous. It’s important to note that the IDF is not the only military to be working with AI in this way. The........

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