How ‘Israel’ Used Artificial Intelligence as a Weapon Against Palestinian Resistance
During the May 2023 offensive on the Gaza Strip, Israeli airstrikes specifically targeted underground warehouses and missile factories with the intention of weakening the Islamic Jihad movement.
The puzzle of the Israeli Occupation’s discovery of these hidden sites seemed “perplexing” until it became clear that “Israel” was using artificial intelligence techniques to detect them.
“Israel” possesses extensive intelligence capabilities, utilizing satellite surveillance, spy balloons, drones, cyber operations, spy programs, as well as ground agents and other methods, to monitor and target both actual and potential adversaries, including even “friendly” ones, establishing its position as a leading entity in this domain.
Rapid Advancement
The Israeli Occupation does not plan to stop here but aims to become a major power in the field of artificial intelligence (A.I.), using it for military, security, and civilian purposes.
During the aggression on Gaza in May 2023, the Israeli army further intensified its use of artificial intelligence.
Alongside using the technology to detect sites and targets, the Israeli Occupation used, for the first time, the automated bot Knowledge Well, which provides real-time insights into Palestinian rocket launches, such as their location, rate, and range.
Colonel Eli Birenbaum, chief of the military’s operational data and applications unit, intends to use artificial intelligence to predict launch operations in future confrontations, according to Reuters on June 13, 2023.
Birenbaum told the agency that this is the next intriguing step; “I want to be where I can best use information to provide our forces in the field with functionality.”
He mentioned that almost half of Israeli military technology experts will focus on artificial intelligence by 2028, as part of a transformation that began in 2016 with the first machine-learning platform designed to detect hacking attempts.
Birenbaum received government support after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu increased the defense budget and pledged to make the country a power in artificial intelligence.
During the Gaza war, the Israeli army employed artificial intelligence techniques by deploying small swarms of quadcopter drones over the southern part of the Strip.
These drones were equipped with artificial intelligence capabilities, with each drone monitoring a specific area of land, detecting rocket launch sites and resistance locations, providing the army with a target bank, and subsequently attacking armed aircraft or ground units, according to The Times of Israel.
The drone swarms have been used dozens of times in combat by a secretive company under the Paratroopers Brigade, relying on concepts developed by the Israeli army’s experimental Ghost Unit, responsible for testing and creating tactics and combat methods for the military, Hebrew website Walla reported.
A company commander in the army told the website: “We conducted more than 30 aerial sorties with the drone swarms, gathering precise intelligence and assisting other drones in executing attacks on targets.”
Saeed Bisharat, an expert on Israeli affairs, stated that “Israel’s capabilities in the field of artificial intelligence are highly advanced, and there is limited surface-level information in the media about the extent of these capabilities, as most of them remain undisclosed and shrouded in secrecy.”
In an interview with Al-Estiklal, Saeed Bisharat said that “the Israeli Occupation is developing drones and guided missiles dedicated to assassinations linked to artificial intelligence in a complex manner, allowing operations to be executed with extreme precision and speed.”
He affirmed that “artificial intelligence will change the current equation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, especially with the rapid advancement of the Israeli army’s capabilities in this field.” This was explicitly expressed by Netanyahu, who was “very pleased” after witnessing these capabilities.
Bisharat emphasized that “artificial intelligence will be present in various domains, including recognizing resistance fighters and tracking pursuers, as well as identifying hidden manufacturing centers and tunnels, even extending to its involvement in military production.”
Upgrading Tools
In a related context, the commander of the Artificial Intelligence Center in the Israeli Intelligence Unit 8200, Colonel Yoav Gallant, revealed the unit’s use of artificial intelligence technology during the May 2021 Gaza war.
According to Channel 14, in February 2023, the official in charge of the technology stated: “One of the important tools we have built and are currently operating is a system that knows how to locate dangerous individuals based on inputs from a list of criminalized individuals entered into the system.
“The system performs this process within seconds, while in the past, it used to require hundreds of researchers and several weeks to be accomplished.”
Yoav added: “During Operation Guardian of the Walls, we were able to use the system to identify leaders of Hamas rocket squads and anti-tank activists in Gaza to kill them.”
He noted that “the Intelligence Branch of the army managed to create 200 new ready-to-attack targets during the operation using the artificial intelligence tools that were developed.”
According to Colonel Yoav, the unit succeeded in updating and upgrading its artificial intelligence tools approximately 150 times during the operation.
The security official also highlighted that the data science and artificial intelligence tools used by the unit significantly enhance its ability to thwart Palestinian operations in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Israeli interior.
Saleh al-Naami, an expert in Israeli affairs, stated that the Israeli army is committed to developing its forces and supporting them with technological and cyber capabilities, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence, which “Israel” sees as the future of warfare and invests in without limits.
Al-Naami added to Al-Estiklal that “the Israeli army unveiled a unit within the Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman) specialized in harnessing all aspects of military efforts (offensive, defensive, and intelligence) to artificial intelligence.”
He emphasized that “the Israeli Occupation uses artificial intelligence by providing its simulator with an enormous amount of intelligence information, in return receiving an accurate and comprehensive insight into the army’s search objectives and the potential threats it fears.
“The information injected into the artificial intelligence simulator includes details about resistance figures, discovered tunnels, active locations of resistance members, missile warehouses, and previous launching sites. Alongside this data are inputs from agents, satellite imagery, and drone surveillance.”
He added: “The result is a comprehensive picture that unveils new tunnels, underground manufacturing sites, as witnessed in the recent escalation, or reveals fortified locations of resistance leaders during wars, enriching Israel’s target bank.”
Al-Naami clarified that “the Israeli Occupation also uses artificial intelligence to verify and examine the credibility of intelligence information provided by agents, as well as assess the success rate of operations. Gradually, Israel is placing more reliance on artificial intelligence.”
Changing the Equation
Israeli channel 13 revealed on March 19, 2023, that the army used artificial intelligence technology during the attack on Gaza on August 15, 2022. The technology successfully predicted the level of danger, prompting the Israeli army to execute a preemptive strike in Gaza.
Following this, the Israeli army initiated a series of assassinations targeting leaders of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, such as Tayseer al-Jabari, Khaled Mansour, and Ziyad al-Nakhalah.
Brigadier General Wasef Eriqat, a military expert, stated that “the artificial intelligence will have a significant impact on the confrontation between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli Occupation, especially in the intelligence field, detecting locations, tunnels, rocket launch pads, ambushes, and other resistance preparations.”
In his interview with Al-Estiklal, Eriqat said that “the Israeli Occupation relies heavily on technological and cyber domains as a key pillar in its military and intelligence activities.”
He stressed that “Israel will not be able to achieve decisive victory solely through artificial intelligence because the resistance adapts, evolves, and surpasses the Israeli army’s advancements in multiple fields, relying on intellect and direct human involvement.”
Eriqat added: “With the deployment of the Iron Dome, the Israeli Occupation believed it would eliminate the resistance’s rockets, initially achieving great success with a 96% interception rate. However, gradually, the Palestinians managed to overcome it, and Israel admitted its failure to intercept rockets hitting deep into occupied territories.”
It’s worth noting that the Palestinians developed rockets in 2014 that were undetectable by the Iron Dome radar systems. “Israel” also accuses the resistance of developing methods to disrupt and launch cyber-attacks against the Iron Dome.
This indicates that every technological advancement by the Israeli Occupation is met with a corresponding development by the Palestinians.
The military writer further affirmed that “war technology can be confronted, hacked, and penetrated. “Israel,” a pioneer in cyber warfare, has experienced it during the 2021 war when the resistance thwarted the Israeli Occupation’s major strike plan, which involved bombing tunnels crowded with resistance fighters after deceiving them into believing that a ground operation had started.
“This pattern might apply to artificial intelligence as well. Throughout history, humans have developed countermeasures against every weapon, no matter how long its military dominance has lasted,” Eriqat said.
Eriqat clarified that “the Israeli Occupation is fully driven towards technology, techniques, drones, and artificial intelligence to reduce its reliance on human soldiers in the battlefield, thus minimizing casualties.”
“Israel” is intensifying its international efforts to enhance its capabilities in the field of artificial intelligence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the possibility of transforming Tel Aviv into a “significant element” in the field of artificial intelligence with American entrepreneur Elon Musk.
According to a statement from his office on June 5, 2023, Netanyahu said that he discussed the topic of artificial intelligence with Musk, “a person whose intelligence and contribution to humanity I greatly appreciate,” as the statement reads.
Netanyahu added that Musk informed him during their phone call that governments should be aware of both the opportunities and potential risks of artificial intelligence.
According to the Israeli PM, Musk expressed his appreciation for the possibility of “Israel” becoming a significant player in this field on a global level.
“In the coming days, I intend to convene policy teams to discuss a national artificial intelligence policy in both the civilian and the security spheres,” Netanyahu said.
