“Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.” (Moshe Dayan)
The artificial intelligence exploiting system called Gospel (Habsora) is supposed by the IDF to significantly increase the efficiency and accuracy of Israeli military operations while limiting the number of civilian casualties. The humanitarian disaster in Gaza and the number of civilian casualties are mainly due to Hamas’s way of fighting behind its civilian shield and relying on the up to 500 km long tunnel network built under the civilian settlement – the underground Gaza metro. It has also been claimed, for example, by humanitarian organizations, that the large number of civilian casualties is due to the “loosening” of the Israeli army’s (IDF) military doctrine, which spares them, and the partial replacement of the so-called the Dahiya doctrine.
Israel launched countermeasures against Hamas and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad) following their brutal and large-scale brigade attack on Israel on October 7. During the attack, the terrorists massacred more than 840 civilians under rocket fire and killed 350 soldiers and security personnel, kidnapped about 240 people – civilians and soldiers – in Gaza and committed widespread sexual violence, including rape.
The attack was the single largest loss to the Israeli civilian population since the Holocaust, and so from the first moment after the October 7th attack, Israeli policymakers declared war and that the response would be completely different from previous military operations in Gaza. The goal is to destroy the military threat of Hamas and release the hostages.
Gospel
In 2019, the Israeli army created a new center (Targets Administrative Division), which aims to use artificial intelligence to speed up targeting. The unit includes hundreds of officers and soldiers and its operation is based on the capabilities of artificial intelligence. Former IDF chief Aviv Kochavi has described Gospel as follows:
“This is a machine that uses artificial intelligence to process a lot of data better and faster than any human and convert it into targets for attack”… The result was that in connection with Operation Guardian of the Walls [in 2021], the machine created 100 new targets every day from that moment, when this machine was introduced. There used to be times in Gaza when we created 50 sites a year. And here the machine produced 100 objects in one day.”
Thanks to Gospel, for the first time, the IDF is able to create new targets faster than attacks.
The efficiency of the system is illustrated by a comparison with the previous one. In the current war, as of November 10, in the first 35 days of fighting, Israel had attacked a total of 15,000 targets in Gaza. This is a very high number compared to the previous four major operations in Gaza. In 2021 Guardian of the Walls) Israel attacked 1500 targets in 11 days. In 2014 (Protective Edge), which lasted 51 days, Israel struck between 5,266 and 6,231 targets. In 2012 (Pillar of Defense), about 1,500 targets were attacked in eight days. In 2008 (Cast Lead) Israel hit 3,400 targets in 22 days.
The artificial intelligence system Gospel (Habsora) enables the use of automatic tools to produce targets at a rapid pace and works by improving accurate and high-quality intelligence material according to [operational] needs. The AI uses existing intelligence to locate potential targets in Gaza and map the theoretical civilian casualties a strike on those targets would cause. This is all categorized by a “traffic light system”: red would mean that there would be too many Palestinian casualties to justify an attack, while green would indicate the opposite. Gospel processes huge amounts of data that even tens of thousands of intelligence agencies have not been able to process and recommends bombings in real time.
Since most senior Hamas leaders head for the underground tunnels at the start of any military operation, using a system like Gospel’s allows mostly the homes of relatively junior officers to be located and attacked. Such targets are attacked, for example, when the employee arrives home. Intelligence officers know whether an employee’s family members or neighbors might also die in an attack, and they know how to calculate how many of them might die. In most cases, Hamas military operations are not carried out in these sites, they are only residences of individual terrorists.
The Israeli military has files on most potential targets in Gaza – including homes – showing the number of civilians likely to die in an attack on a particular target. The reason for the large number of items is largely based on the Gospel system, which can “create” items almost automatically at a speed significantly exceeding the power of previous systems. Along with Gospel, Israel has also revealed another artificial intelligence system known as “Fire Factory”. This system uses data from military-approved targets to calculate ammunition loads, prioritize and target thousands of targets for aircraft and drones, and suggest a schedule for subsequent attacks.
The interactive map distributed by DF to Gazans to inform about the current fighting areas. (Screenshot)
Dahiya Doctrine
“The focus is on damage and not accuracy” (IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari)
When Israel’s goal is to eliminate as many Hamas terrorists as possible, the criteria for harming Palestinian civilians has been relaxed at the same time. In previous operations, advance warning of targets was a rule that in a war situation like the current one may not be able to be followed as before. The central principle of Israel’s military policy is “deterrence”. This includes the so-called To the “Dahiya doctrine”, which dictates the use of overwhelming and disproportionate force – and thus a potential war crime – to target civilian infrastructure during military operations.
The Dahiya Doctrine is said to have originated in the 2006 Lebanon War. According to the doctrine, developed by former IDF Chief of Staff and now War Cabinet member Gadi Eizenkot, in a war against guerrilla groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah, Israel must use disproportionate and overwhelming force against civilian and government infrastructure to create deterrence and force the civilian population to pressure terrorist groups. to stop his attack.
The concept of “objects of power” seems to originate from this same logic. In November 2018, the IDF, in its counterattack, again hit power targets, bombing, for example, apartment buildings, shopping centers and the building of the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa television station. “Attacking power targets has a very significant effect on the other side,” one Air Force officer said at the time. “We did it without killing anyone and made sure the building and its surroundings were evacuated.” Previous operations have also shown how striking these targets is not only intended to damage Palestinian morale, but also to boost morale in Israel. In the past, Israel’s idea was to use force sparingly and sustain a weak Hamas so that it could run the Gaza Strip. When Hamas successfully carried out 7 out of 10 attacks, it changed the rules of the game, so Israel changed theirs.
Categories of airstrikes
Israeli airstrikes in Gaza can – according to unconfirmed information – be roughly divided into four categories:
- The first is “tactical targets”, which include common military targets such as armed terrorist cells, weapons depots, rocket launchers, anti-tank missile launchers, launch sites, mortars, military command centers, observation posts, and so on.
- The second is “underground targets” – mainly tunnels that Hamas has dug under civilian housing in Gaza. Airstrikes on these targets can lead to the collapse of houses above or near the tunnels.
- The third is the so-called “powerhouses”, which include high-rise buildings in the heart of cities and public buildings such as universities, banks and government offices. The idea behind hitting such targets is that a deliberate attack on social structures puts “civilian pressure” on Hamas.
- The last category consists of “family residences” or “terrorist homes”. The purpose of these attacks is to destroy private homes in order to eliminate a single Hamas or PIJ operative.
Israel’s destructive bombing of the Gaza Strip has been critically assessed (e.g. at UN Security Council meetings) that it deliberately strikes targets knowing that civilians will die as a result. Several sources who served in the IDF’s intelligence units said that, at least until the current war, the military’s protocols allowed for offensive force. targets only then , 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 sites have been attacked without warning to their residents, killing entire families. Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip has apparently also deliberately targeted to places that have no military value knowing that civilian casualties will occur.
The bigger picture
Along with Gospel and Fire Factory, the IDF utilizes artificial intelligence in its other weapons systems in addition to airstrikes, underscoring the country’s ongoing efforts to integrate advanced technology and supercomputers as part of its military strategy. In ground war, algorithms immediately calculate, for example, which shooter has the best angle of attack or which weapon should be used in a given situation.
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One of the key questions in the robotics industry today is who pulls the trigger. Today’s armed ground robots open fire at the command of their operator; in the next few years, the conditions under which the robot could open fire automatically must be defined. Even now, robots can be equipped with weapon systems, day and night vision optics and connected to them, for example, with software enabling biometric identification, but still a definition of the trigger’s depressor is required. Artificial intelligence is not flawless, just like humans are not, as it became clear when IDF soldiers shot their compatriots who surrendered, turned out to be bank prisoners, in Gaza. In the future, perhaps the facial recognition software attached to the fighters’ cameras will, perhaps in a fraction of a second, identify the person encountered as a friend, enemy or civilian.
The abundant civilian casualties in Gaza have caused considerable international criticism and it is very possible that Israel will have to count the effects of the Gospel through a reevaluation of the Dahiya doctrine.
For years, Israel was under the operational jurisdiction of the US European Command (EUCOM), while its other neighbors were under the US Central Command (CENTCOM). In 2021, Israel transitioned from EUCOM to CENTCOM. Several key CENTCOM allies were in constant rhetorical conflict with Israel’s existence. However, Israel’s transition to CENTCOM has developed an infrastructure base for intelligence transfer, joint air operations with CENTCOM, and operations with the 5th Fleet. The move allows cooperation with Sunni Arab countries under the US flag against the axis led by Iran and other enemies. According to the Israeli view, after the defeat of Hamas, CENTCOM will create the conditions for strengthening and consolidating all strategic alliances between Israel and the Arab countries and pave the way for the reconstruction of Gaza.
Sources i.a: TheNewArab , INSS , Ynet , Israel21c