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The Israeli occupation army developed artificial intelligence programs for use in the war on the Gaza Strip, and resorted to using these technologies in a malicious way to kill the largest number of civilians, according to military expert Major General Fayez Al-Duwairi.

It is known that Unit 8200 - which is considered one of the most important Israeli intelligence units - receives a stream of information, photos, phone calls, and social media posts.

According to an information report prepared by Salam Khader for Al Jazeera, this unit analyzes this data to determine future operations based on artificial intelligence.

Drones constitute the primary source of information, through which Unit 8200 obtains images and geographical movement patterns of people, and monitors the communication network by collecting voice fingerprints.

Through social media, the Israeli unit claims to build knowledge about political loyalties and opinions, as it relies on this information to prepare a database that feeds targeting systems that operate with artificial intelligence, the most recent of which is the “Hapsura” program.

"Hapsura" program

According to the report published by Al Jazeera, the “Hapsura” system, developed by Unit 8200, possesses machine learning technology to analyze huge amounts of data at high speed in order to generate targets for destruction.

Like all automated systems, Hapsora works and executes orders based on the data that is fed to it. Last February, the Israeli army said that the program is used to collect information, analyze it, and then identify potential targets.

But the final decision to carry out strikes - as the army says - is always made by a human element with the approval of a responsible officer according to the information he has.

An Israeli officer - who kept his identity secret - described the Habsura system as a "mass assassination factory," and media outlets quoted army officers as confirming that the occupation army deliberately targets civilians, buildings, and civilian facilities.

Habsura has lethal arms with which it feeds army units, including infantry, artillery, air forces, and navy, with targets. Unit 8200 controls a fleet of drones that target unarmed civilians and take their pictures before and after the targeting.

The drones that Israel uses in its war on Gaza do not belong to what is known as the “independent decision” model, that is, they are not programmed to fire themselves. They work to monitor and send real-time images to military bases, where an officer or soldier makes the decision to kill from behind a surveillance screen. .

Malicious use

According to military expert Major General Fayez Al-Douri, Israel had data for 40,000 residents of the Gaza Strip when the war began, based on the “Database” system, indicating that the use of artificial intelligence represents an essential element in the army’s plans.

Al-Duwairi said, in an analysis for Al Jazeera, that there are plans to use armies of drones led by a single drone, pointing out that decisions in all countries of the world are issued through algorithms that derive their decisions from the databases that are fed into them.

But the situation is different in Israel - Al-Duwairi adds - because the final decision to target is made by an officer who has complete information about a particular residential tower, including the people in it and everyone who owns a mobile phone, and not by algorithms.

Al-Duwairi stressed that Israel used artificial intelligence “in a malicious way” to achieve political goals. Because relying on these programs is primarily aimed at reducing civilian casualties by specifying targets more precisely, which is the opposite of what Israel is doing.

He concluded that the occupation army uses much larger bombs than required by the target located somewhere, and this is because the decision is made by an officer and not through artificial intelligence programs that determine the size of the ammunition used according to the nature and size of the target.

Source: Al Jazeera