Re: Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War
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Israeli protesters demand "immediate" removal of Netanyahu
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv demanding the resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the return of hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
"Netanyahu is deliberately sabotaging the agreements and standing between us and our loved ones in Gaza." The hostages do not have time to wait for the elections, the obstacle to the deal must be removed now, and Netanyahu replaced immediately."
https://x.com/Sprinterfactory/status...41005326205045
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https://x.com/MayadeenEnglish/status...13729607880833
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/...e-in-gaza--hit
Google mum about Israeli use of photo software in Gaza 'hit list'
In a piece published by The Intercept, Sam Biddle, a technology reporter, contended that the Israeli military has established a widespread facial recognition surveillance system across the Gaza Strip.
The system scans Palestinian civilians as they navigate devastated areas, trying to escape the continuous Israeli bombardment and acquire necessities for their families.
The Israeli military reportedly utilizes two different facial recognition tools, as per information from The New York Times. One is developed by the Israeli contractor Corsight, while the other is integrated into the widely used consumer image organization platform, Google Photos. According to an anonymous Israeli official cited by the Times, Google Photos outperformed other facial recognition technologies, aiding Israeli authorities in compiling a "hit list" of alleged Resistance fighters involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
The incident of mass surveillance targeting Palestinian individuals by "Israel" in an attempt to identify Resistance fighters has resulted in the apprehension of thousands of Gaza residents since October 7, as per the article.
Many of those detained or imprisoned, often without substantial evidence, have reported being subjected to brutal interrogation or torture. The New York Times highlighted the case of Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who was arrested and beaten by Israeli occupation forces, with his arrest initiated through facial recognition technology. Despite being released without any charges, Abu Toha recounted to the newspaper that Israeli soldiers informed him that his arrest, facilitated by facial recognition, was a "mistake".
In Biddle's view, setting aside concerns about accuracy, the deployment of facial recognition systems raises issues, particularly regarding their lower accuracy rates on nonwhite faces.
Utilizing Google Photos' machine learning-powered analysis to subject civilians to military surveillance contradicts the company's explicitly stated guidelines. Under the section titled "Dangerous and Illegal Activities," Google explicitly states that Google Photos cannot be employed to endorse activities, products, services, or information that directly and severely harm individuals.
Biddle gushes, "It’s unclear how such prohibitions — or the company’s long-standing public commitments to human rights — are being applied to Israel’s military."
“It depends how Google interprets ‘serious and immediate harm’ and ‘illegal activity,’ but facial recognition surveillance of this type undermines rights enshrined in international human rights law — privacy, non-discrimination, expression, assembly rights, and more,” said Anna Bacciarelli, the associate tech director at Human Rights Watch.
“Given the context in which this technology is being used by Israeli forces, amid widespread, ongoing, and systematic denial of the human rights of people in Gaza, I would hope that Google would take appropriate action,” she added.
Tech ethos clash: Doing good or doing google?
Apart from prohibiting the use of Google Photos to inflict harm on individuals in its terms of service, the company has long asserted its commitment to various international human rights norms.
“Since Google’s founding, we’ve believed in harnessing the power of technology to advance human rights,” wrote Alexandria Walden, the company’s global head of human rights, in a 2022 blog post.
“That’s why our products, business operations, and decision-making around emerging technologies are all informed by our Human Rights Program and deep commitment to increase access to information and create new opportunities for people around the world.”
Google claims to be deeply committed to upholding human rights standards, including those outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which explicitly prohibits torture, and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These principles acknowledge that conflicts over territory often lead to severe human rights violations.
The gist of Biddle's argument is that the Israeli military's utilization of a freely accessible Google product like Photos raises doubts about Google's adherence to its corporate human rights commitments and willingness to take meaningful action as per them.
According to Google, it endorses and adheres to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which urge companies to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts associated with their operations, products, or services, including those stemming from their business relationships, even if they are not directly responsible for causing those impacts.
“Google and Corsight both have a responsibility to ensure that their products and services do not cause or contribute to human rights abuses,” said Bacciarelli. “I’d expect Google to take immediate action to end the use of Google Photos in this system, based on this news.”
Employees of Google participating in the No Tech for Apartheid campaign, a protest movement led by workers against Project Nimbus, urged their employer to prevent the Israeli military from utilizing facial recognition technology from Google Photos to prosecute the war on Gaza.
“That the Israeli military is even weaponizing consumer technology like Google Photos, using the included facial recognition to identify Palestinians as part of their surveillance apparatus, indicates that the Israeli military will use any technology made available to them — unless Google takes steps to ensure their products don’t contribute to ethnic cleansing, occupation, and genocide,” the group said in a statement, as quoted by The Intercept.
“As Google workers, we demand that the company drop Project Nimbus immediately, and cease all activity that supports the Israeli government and military’s genocidal agenda to decimate Gaza.”
Not an isolated incident
There is nothing new about Google's professed commitment to human rights principles conflicting with its business dealings, especially concerning "Israel", according to Biddle. Since 2021, Google has provided the Israeli military with advanced cloud computing and machine learning tools under its contentious "Project Nimbus" contract.
While Google Photos is a freely accessible consumer product, Project Nimbus is a customized software initiative designed specifically for the Israeli government's requirements. Nevertheless, both Project Nimbus and Google Photos' facial recognition capabilities are developed using the company's extensive machine-learning resources.
The sale of these advanced tools to a government frequently accused of human rights violations and war crimes contradicts Google's AI Principles. These principles prohibit the use of AI in ways likely to cause harm, including applications that conflict with widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.
Google has previously implied that its principles are narrower in scope than they appear, applying only to "custom AI work" and not to the general use of its products by third parties. A spokesperson for the company stated to Defense One in 2022, "It means that our technology can be used fairly broadly by the military."
According to Biddle, the extent to which Google translates its executive-stated commitments into real-world consequences remains unclear.
Ariel Koren, a former Google employee who was forced out of her job in 2022 after protesting Project Nimbus, sees Google's silence on the Photos issue as part of a broader pattern of avoiding accountability for how its technology is utilized.
“It is an understatement to say that aiding and abetting a genocide constitutes a violation of Google’s AI principles and terms of service,” Koren, now an organizer with No Tech for Apartheid, said as quoted by The Intercept.
“Even in the absence of public comment, Google’s actions have made it clear that the company’s public AI ethics principles hold no bearing or weight in Google Cloud’s business decisions, and that even complicity in genocide is not a barrier to the company’s ruthless pursuit of profit at any cost.”
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https://english.almayadeen.net/news/...-system-for-ga
'Targets never end': 'Israel' uses Lavender AI system for Gaza bombing
The Israeli military's airstrikes in Gaza utilized a previously undisclosed AI-powered database, dubbed Lavender, which reportedly identified 37,000 alleged targets linked to the Palestinian Resistance, according to intelligence sources familiar with the ongoing aggression.
These sources also unmasked that Israeli military officials authorized the killing of a significant number of Palestinian civilians, particularly in the initial weeks and months of the genocide.
Their testimonies offer shocking experiences of Israeli intelligence personnel employing machine-learning systems to pinpoint "targets" during the six-month-long aggression.
'The machine did it coldly'
Israeli utilization of sophisticated AI technology in its genocidal campaign in Gaza marks new territory in modern warfare, adding to the legal and ethical scrutiny and reshaping the dynamics between military personnel and automated systems.
"The machine did it coldly. And that made it easier,” said one intelligence officer who used Lavender.
“I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day. I had zero added-value as a human, apart from being a stamp of approval. It saved a lot of time,” said another soldier.
The testimony from the six intelligence officers, all of whom have been involved in using AI systems to identify "targets" allegedly affiliated with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) during the war, was provided to Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. This information was published in a report by publication +972 Magazine and outlet Local Call.
Authorization to target civilians
All six individuals stated that Lavender played a pivotal role in the war, analyzing vast amounts of data to swiftly identify "potential targets". According to four sources, Lavender initially listed up to 37,000 Palestinian men allegedly linked to the Resistance during the early stages of the war.
Developed by the Israel Security Forces' elite intelligence division, Unit 8200, Lavender is likened to the US National Security Agency or the UK's GCHQ.
Multiple sources detailed how the IOF implemented pre-authorized allowances for specific "target categories", specifying the estimated number of civilians permissible to be killed before authorizing a strike.
Palestinian father Ashraf abu Draz from #Rafah bidding farewell for his wife and two daughters aged 1 and 3 who were KILLED in #Israeli_bombing of his house last night!#StopGazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/U9M3S2NOG2
— Motasem A Dalloul (@AbujomaaGaza) April 4, 2024
According to two sources, in the initial weeks of the war, they were authorized to kill 15 to 20 civilians during airstrikes allegedly targeting Resistance fighters. These attacks, typically executed using unguided munitions referred to as "dumb bombs", resulted in the destruction of entire residences and the fatalities of all individuals inside them.
“You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people – it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” one intelligence officer said.
“Because we usually carried out the attacks with dumb bombs, and that meant literally dropping the whole house on its occupants. But even if an attack is averted, you don’t care – you immediately move on to the next target. Because of the system, the targets never end. You have another 36,000 waiting,” another added.
According to experts, if "Israel" has indeed utilized unguided bombs to destroy the residences of numerous Palestinians over the mere suspicion of having ties to Resistance groups in Gaza, aided by AI technology, this could provide a potential explanation for the significantly elevated civilian death toll during the war.
The Health Ministry reported earlier today that the total number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli aggression on Gaza started on October 7 has risen to 33,037, in addition to 75,668 injuries.
‘It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home’
The testimonies published by +972 and Local Call may shed light on how a modern military with advanced capabilities and precision weapons could still inflict significant casualties during warfare.
According to the testimonies, when targeting suspected Resistance fighters, the preference was to strike when they were believed to be present at their family's homes.
“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” one said. “It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
The strategy posed a risk of increased civilian casualties, and according to the sources, the IOF enforced predetermined limits on the acceptable number of civilian casualties in strikes targeting individual Resistance fighters. This ratio was reported to have evolved over time and differed based on the seniority of the target.
"No one thought about what to do afterward, when the war is over, or how it will be possible to live in Gaza,” one said.
“There was a dissonance: on the one hand, people here were frustrated that we were not attacking enough. On the other hand, you see at the end of the day that another thousand Gazans have died, most of them civilians,” one Israeli intelligence officer who used Lavender asserted.
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