War by mass targeted assassination

Air war on Gaza.  Source: +972 Magazine.

An investigative journalist in Israel reports that Israel’s air war in Gaza is guided by an artificial intelligence system called Habsora, or The Gospel, that supposedly identifies the locations of Hamas fighters and activists.

Yuval Abraham, writing for the online +972 Magazine, reports that the Israeli army knows, or believes it knows, the location of most Hamas militants, and is bombing their homes and other locations, no matter how many other people may be killed in the process.  

His reporting is based on anonymous sources, but backed up by data analysis and on-the-scene reporting.  Abraham wrote:

Several of the sources, who spoke … … on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that the Israeli army has files on the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza — including homes — which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. This number is calculated and known in advance to the army’s intelligence units, who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly how many civilians are certain to be killed.

In one case discussed by the sources, the Israeli military command knowingly approved the killing of hundreds of Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate a single top Hamas military commander.

Habsora analyzes data from a range of sources, including drone footage, intercepted communications and surveillance data.  This is used to determine movements and behavior patterns of individuals and large groups, which then generates targeting recommendations.

I think that what Israel is doing with AI is an alarming new development whose significance is above and beyond the Gaza War alone.  Military commanders will soon identify enemy troops by name and target them individually.  They will have the option of targeting the enemy troops’ families.

I don’t know which would be the most alarming – that such a method of warfare could be used with pinpoint accuracy, or that it couldn’t be, but would be used anyway.