Under mounting pressure from the families of hostages, Israel has deployed Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to target Hamas leaders in Gaza and assist in hostage recovery, reports said on Saturday.
The reports confirmed that Israel employed AI during a strike in late October 2023 which targeted Ibrahim Biari, commander of Hamas’s Central Jabalia Battalion. Israeli sources informed reporters that Biari was tracked and located using an “AI-infused audio tracking tool to locate where he was making calls from.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated that the strike, which killed Biari and reportedly resulted in the deaths of dozens of civilians, was aimed at a Hamas tunnel complex beneath the densely populated camp. The military is currently investigating the incident.
Further claims cited by Israeli defence sources acknowledged concerns over civilian casualties. They said, “there were also instances in which the AI technology resulted in mistaken identifications and arrests.”
The reports revealed that Israel employed AI for facial recognition to identify partly obscured or wounded faces, generated lists of possible targets, and created an Arabic chatbot to scan and analyse text messages and social media posts. Many of these technologies were reportedly developed in collaboration between Military Intelligence’s Unit 8200 and reservists working in major technology companies, collectively referred to as “The Studio”.
Additionally, the same audio-tracking tool responsible for locating Biari has been employed to find Israeli hostages held across Gaza, particularly in tunnels beneath the territory. Sources claimed the tool has been refined over time to improve accuracy in locating individuals.
The veracity of these claims, however, remains subject to independent scrutiny.a
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