George PotterApr 3, 2024

Jesus Christ, this is utterly horrific:

During the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants.

“You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people" said one intelligence officer.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes

#gaza #palestine #israel #genocide

‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets

Israeli intelligence sources reveal use of ‘Lavender’ system in Gaza war and claim permission given to kill civilians in pursuit of low-ranking militants

The Guardian
Show threadTom Bellin 

@georgepotter
An IDF analyst asked to approve the wanton bombing of random homes in Gaza will revolt.

The same analyst given a list of "targets" or "low-level militants" identified by an external authority ("AI") will mindlessly rubber-stamp those targets.

This is basic human psychology and I guarantee you that it is perfectly understood by the IDF.

Every piece of information we see reinforces the intuition that Israel's leadership intended a punitive eradication campaign against civilians.

Apr 3, 2024 at 9:23pmWeb
Show threadGeorge PotterApr 3, 2024

@tob absolutely. We're talking, after all, about human beings, and humans need ways to rationalise their actions.

Only a genuine psycho would sit down and say "let's destroy this entire specific apartment block full of civilians to kill this one particular person", but if you decouple the parts of the process and share responsibility across multiple layers then all involved can rationalise it to themselves because they're not the key decision-maker.

"I was only following orders."