Mastodawn

Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

'A mass assassination factory'

Yuval Abraham
November 30, 2023

Israeli Defense Minister Gallant: "We are fighting human animals & we act accordingly."

7 Israeli defense & intel members detailed to 972 how #IDF is killing vastly more civilians in #Gaza, via

1) expanded permission to bomb non-military targets,
2) tossed constraints regarding expected civilian casualties
3) began using an #AI system to generate more potential targets than human command could

https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/

‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza

Permissive airstrikes on non-military targets and the use of an AI system have enabled the Israeli army to carry out its deadliest war on Gaza.

+972 Magazine

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"dropping a one-ton bomb aimed at killing a Hamas operative [&] killing an entire family ...was not always so readily accepted"

In 2002, the IDF "bombed the home of Salah Mustafa Muhammad Shehade, then the head of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing. The bomb killed him, his wife Eman, his 14-year-old daughter Laila, & 14 other civilians, including 11 children. The killing caused a public uproar in both Israel & the world, & Israel was accused of committing war crimes"

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"After 2014’s Protective Edge, during which Israel began to systematically strike family homes from the air, human rights groups like B’Tselem collected testimonies from Palestinians who survived these attacks. The survivors said the homes collapsed in on themselves, glass shards cut the bodies of those inside, the debris “smells of blood,” and people were buried alive."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

Operation Iron Swords "has seen the army significantly expand its bombing of [non-military targets] like private residences...public buildings, infrastructure, & high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as “power targets”

Bombing "power targets," said intel sources w/"first-hand experience with its application in Gaza in the past, is mainly intended to harm Palestinian civil society: to “create a shock” that...will reverberate powerfully & “lead civilians to put pressure on Hamas” "

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

[This is collective punishment & a war crime]

"Several of the sources...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 & 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."

#Gaza #Biden #Bibi

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"during the current attacks on Gaza, the Israeli army has...struck private residences even when there is no known...military target. [E.g.], according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, by Nov. 29, Israel had killed 50 Palestinian journalists in Gaza, some of them in their homes with their families.

Roshdi Sarraj, 31, a journalist from Gaza who was born in Britain, founded a media outlet in Gaza...On Oct. 22, an Israeli bomb struck his parents’ home where he was sleeping, killing him."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"The journalist Salam Mema similarly died under the ruins of her home after it was bombed; of her three young children, Hadi, 7, died, while Sham, 3, has not yet been found under the rubble. Two other journalists, Duaa Sharaf & Salma Makhaimer, were killed together with their children in their homes."

[There are more cases of journalists' families being targeted & killed in their homes.]

Israeli analysts have admitted they know "Israeli harm to civilians gives [Hamas] legitimacy in fighting”

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

“Nothing happens by accident,” said another source. “When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"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. “The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [permitted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage,” said one source."

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Erin Conroy

"According to the investigation, another reason for the large number of targets, & the extensive harm to civilian life in #Gaza, is the widespread use of a system called “Habsora” (“The Gospel”), which is largely built on #artificialintelligence & can “generate” targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This #AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a “mass assassination factory.” "

#MassAssassinationFactory

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

Sources confirmed "the increasing use of AI-based systems...allows the army to carry out strikes on residential homes...on a massive scale [&] knowingly kill entire families"

"In the majority of cases, the sources added, military activity is not conducted from these targeted homes. “I remember thinking that it was like if [Palestinian militants] would bomb all the private residences of our families when [Israeli soldiers] go back to sleep at home on the weekend,” one source...recalled."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"Another source said that a senior intelligence officer told his officers...the criteria around harming Palestinian civilians were significantly relaxed. As such, there are “cases in which we shell based on a wide cellular pinpointing of where the target is, killing civilians. This is often done to save time, instead of doing a little more work to get a more accurate pinpointing,” said the source."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"Over 300 families have lost 10 or more family members in Israeli bombings in the past 2 months...15 times higher than [previous most deadly attacks on #Gaza] 2014...

“All of this is happening contrary to the protocol used by the IDF in the past,” a source explained. “There is a feeling that senior officials in the army are aware of their failure on October 7, and are busy with the question of how to provide the Israeli public with an image [of victory] that will salvage their reputation.”

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"Israel launched its assault on Gaza in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas-led offensive on southern Israel. During that attack, under a hail of rocket fire, Palestinian militants massacred more than 840 civilians & killed 350 soldiers & security personnel, kidnapped around 240 people — civilians & soldiers — to Gaza, & committed widespread sexual violence, including rape, according to a report by the NGO Physicians for Human Rights Israel."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"According to the sources [targets of] Israeli aircraft can be divided roughly into four categories:" tactical, underground, "power targets" & family homes.

Power targets include "high-rises & residential towers...& public buildings such as universities, banks, & government offices. The idea...say three intelligence sources who were involved in planning or conducting strikes on power targets in the past, is that a deliberate attack on Palestinian society will exert “civil pressure” on Hamas.

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

[NB: list does not mention schools, hospitals & refugee camps, 100s of which have been targeted by a program of IDF airstrikes]

"The final category consists of “family homes” or “operatives’ homes.” The stated purpose of these attacks is to destroy private residences in order to assassinate a single resident suspected of being a Hamas or Islamic Jihad operative. However, in the current war, Palestinian testimonies assert that some of the families that were killed did not include any operatives"

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"A concerted policy to bomb family homes"

"Oct. 22, [IDF] bombed the home of the Palestinian journalist Ahmed Alnaouq...4 years ago, we founded a Hebrew Facebook page called “Across the Wall,” [to bring] voices from Gaza to the Israeli public.

The strike...collapsed blocks of concrete onto Ahmed’s entire family, killing his father, brothers, sisters, & all of their children, including babies. Only his 12yo niece, Malak, survived ...her body covered in burns. A few days later, Malak died."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"21 members of Ahmed’s family were killed in total, buried under their home. None of them were militants. The youngest was 2 years old; the oldest, his father, was 75. Ahmed, who is currently living in the UK, is now alone out of his entire family.

Ahmed’s family WhatsApp group is titled “Better Together.” The last message that appears there was sent by him, a little after midnight on the night he lost his family. “Someone let me know that everything is fine,” he wrote. No one answered."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

" “We are asked to look for high-rise buildings with half a floor that can be attributed to Hamas,” said one source who took part in previous Israeli offensives in Gaza. “Sometimes it is a militant group’s spokesperson’s office, or a point where operatives meet. I understood that the floor is an excuse that allows the army to cause a lot of destruction in Gaza. That is what they told us."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

" “If they would tell the whole world that the [Islamic Jihad] offices on the 10th floor are not important as a target, but that its existence is a justification to bring down the entire high-rise with the aim of pressuring civilian families who live in it in order to put pressure on terrorist organizations, this would itself be seen as terrorism. So they do not say it,” the source added."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"the Israeli army appears to have given particular attention to [power targets & family homes]. According to statements on Oct. 11 by the IDF Spokesperson, during the first five days of fighting, half of the targets bombed — 1,329 out of a total 2,687 — were deemed power targets.
...
according to the Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, these attacks led to “the complete destruction of residential neighborhoods, the destruction of infrastructure, and the mass killing of residents.”

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"Various sources who served in IDF intelligence units said that at least until the current war, army protocols allowed for attacking power targets only when the buildings were empty of residents at the time of the strike. However, testimonies and videos from Gaza suggest that since October 7, some of these targets have been attacked without prior notice being given to their occupants, killing entire families as a result."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"On Oct. 25, the 12-story Al-Taj residential building in Gaza City was bombed to the ground, killing the families living inside it without warning. About 120 people were buried under the ruins of their apartments, according to the testimonies of residents. Yousef Amar Sharaf, a resident of Al-Taj, wrote on X that 37 of his family members who lived in the building were killed in the attack: “My dear father & mother, my beloved wife, my sons, & most of my brothers & their families.”

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"striking these [civil] targets is meant...also to raise the morale inside Israel. Haaretz revealed that...in 2021, the #IDF Spokesperson’s Unit conducted a psy-op against Israeli citizens in order to boost awareness of...damage they caused to Palestinians. Soldiers, who used fake social media accounts to conceal the campaign’s origin, uploaded images & clips of the army’s strikes in Gaza to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, & TikTok in order to demonstrate the army’s prowess to the Israeli public."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"According to the Israeli army, during the first five days of fighting it dropped 6,000 bombs on the Strip...4,000 tons."

"Israel bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, the Palestinian Bar Association, a UN building for an educational program for outstanding students, a building belonging to the Palestine Telecommunications Company, the Ministry of National Economy, the Ministry of Culture, roads, & dozens of high-rise buildings & homes [especially in] Gaza’s northern neighborhoods."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"intelligence sources told +972 and Local Call that military targets that were part of power targets have previously been used many times as a fig leaf for harming the civilian population. “Hamas is everywhere in Gaza; there is no building that does not have something of Hamas in it, so if you want to find a way to turn a high-rise into a target, you will be able to do so,” said one former intelligence official."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"Indeed, according to sources who were involved in the compiling of power targets in previous wars, although the target file usually contains some kind of alleged association with Hamas or other militant groups, striking the target functions primarily as a “means that allows damage to civil society.” The sources understood, some explicitly and some implicitly, that damage to civilians is the real purpose of these attacks."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"According to an investigation by Amnesty Int'l, on Oct. 9, Israel shelled at least 3 multi-story buildings [&] an open flea market on a crowded street in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp, killing at least 69 people. “The bodies were burned…I didn’t want to look, I was scared of looking at Imad’s face,” said the father of a child who was killed. “Everyone was looking for their children in these piles. I recognized my son only by his trousers. I wanted to bury him immediately, so I carried my son...out”

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

By the 5th day, IDF had hit >1000 power targets.

"The Chief of Staff of the Israeli Air Force, Omer Tishler, told military reporters that all of these attacks had a legitimate military target, but also that entire neighborhoods were attacked “on a large scale & not in a surgical manner.”

Over 1/2 of "targets up until Oct. 11 were power targets...On Oct. 12, the Israeli army announced it had killed [just] three “senior Hamas members” — two of whom were part of the group’s political wing."

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Erin Conroy Dec 11, 2023

"According to Amnesty’s investigation, the army said that the attack on the market area [in Jabaliya Refugee Camp] was aimed at a mosque “where there were Hamas operatives.” However, according to the same investigation, satellite images do not show a mosque in the vicinity."

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