Based on how the war has gone so far as soon as they do that the IDF will destroy it, claiming it’s a Hamas base of operations.
I have it on good authority that those children must all have been child soldiers…
…a few months ago we talked about the AI targeting system used by the IDF called “the Gospel.” The Gospel targeted buildings. In a report broken today by 972 Magazine, we learn about another AI targeting system called “Lavender” which targets people.
It basically generated a “kill-list”, that included an automated system called “Where’s Daddy” that “used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.”
Its a harrowing, sobering read. It fits with the pattern of death and destruction that we have seen throughout the war, and it’s a harbinger of things to come, as we will increasingly see governments and police forces around the world adopting these technologies.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/03/biden-nato-aid-workers-strike-gaza-pier-00150384
…no matter what happens in the near future, its going to come down to UNRWA, the agency that the United States congress overwhelmingly voted to defund just weeks ago, to fix this mess that the US have contributed too.
The attempt to circumvent them by using intermediaries and proxies has failed, and UNRWA are really the only humanitarian agency on the ground that has the networks, can still scale up, and is still operational. I’d be laughing if the whole thing wasn’t so damn depressing.
The Guardian had an article about this today as well.
Standout line for me (which relates to human choices, not the AI itself):
Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants.
Yes. 20 innocent deaths to get one low Hamas flunky picked by a computer purely on stats data was perfectly acceptable to the IOF. Twenty-to-One.
This from a machine that can’t distinguish between aid workers and combatants.
I don’t like the way in which you throw about the term genocide, lots of people can be killed without the prefix of that loaded term being thrown about, but I guess that’s why you’re using it in the first place.
Your own yardstick of genocide would also apply to US strategic bombing of Japan in WWII
Oh, this isn’t disingenuous at all, given the number of posts where BB has said exactly what makes this a genocide.
Not genocide, but certainly a war crime, yes.
Doesn’t make it any more true
No one disputes that Israel has committed war crimes in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, but it ain’t genocide.
Well, it helps that the facts he’s cited numerous times support his case, too.
Lots of people dispute this. In this very thread, some of them.
It am’t.
…well what exactly do you want me to do about that?
Its a word that I didn’t use for much of this thread. The first time I remember using it, was in the context of how some Palestinians were describing what they said was happening to them, and I quoted some of them.
And I was accused of blood libel. And the occasional person pitted me, and there was a big thread in ATMB about it, and I stopped using the word genocide in any context, because being accused of blood libel was one of the most upsetting things that has ever happened on these boards.
So what changed?
The South African case that was presented to the International Court of Justice. I’ve linked to it before. I’ll link to it again.
The evidence is all laid out there. You can read it for yourself. And in the months following the submission, Israel’s behaviour has gotten significantly worse.
Gaza has been flattened. Out of 32 hospitals, only ten are partially functional right now, and only four of them can really be called “in service.” The IDF burned down the largest hospital in Gaza a few days ago. They did it just as they were leaving. The central laboratory…gone. The surgical unit…gone. Dialysis…gone. Doctors and medical staff murdered or disappeared.
Elsewhere in Gaza the only cancer hospital got bulldozed. Nobody can access cancer care any more. There is only a single partially functional hospital in the north.
Every university in Gaza has been demolished. Academics have been targeted and killed. Refaat Alareer got a phone call saying they knew what school he was sheltering in so he went to stay with his sister instead…and they bombed his sisters apartment, killing him.
Deliberate, systematic, targeted killing.
Over 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed in six months. 4 times as many as any other conflict since they started recording the numbers. Deliberate. Targeted.
Mosques. Churches. Apartment buildings. Farmland. Razed. Bulldozed. Destroyed. Approximately 85% of infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.
There are 2.2 million people in Gaza. About 1.5 million of those people have been forced to move to Rafah and the surrounds. Those that are still in the north are trapped. Israel have been denying food aid to get through to the north and have targeted and killed people in crowds merely waiting for food. And now two of the biggest three humanitarian food aid agencies have suspended operations because the IDF can’t stop killing them.
People are starving. Hundreds of thousands of people will die in Gaza over the next few months, either by bombing, or through famine, or through disease or infection because Israel aren’t even letting most medications through and there is almost no healthcare anyway even if they get sick.
What part of the case I’ve made for genocide, not only in this post, but the posts that I’ve made in the last two months, do you dispute? Again, I’ll direct you to the South African submission to the International Court of Justice, page 59 titled “Expressions of Genocidal Intent against the Palestinian People by Israeli State Officials
and Other.” They clearly stated what they were going to do. And they are doing it.
I can 100% assure you that I’m not using the word genocide “because its a loaded term.” I intentionally did not use the term because it was a loaded term until the evidence was so overwhelming it is now the most fitting and accurate term to use.
It is not completely clear to what extent aid workers are specifically being targeted and killed, but it is pretty open that “combatants” included, for example, anyone who had met someone who printed out a Hamas sticker once, and standard procedure for taking out combatants included blowing up the building they were in and/or dozens of innocent bystanders.
One question: are there any procedures/evidence/arrest warrants against identified individuals who are known to have committed war crimes?
…todays Flash update:
Regarding Al Shifa:
Remember it was working over capacity dealing with bombings and crush injuries and famine and sickness and disease.
But Al Shifa was also a hospital, that treated all of the things that one would expect hospitals to be able to treat. It was the largest hospital in Gaza, about 30% of capacity. And it’s gone now.
I’ve been regularly posting flash updates in this thread. You can go back and see how massively healthcare has deteriorated in just a few months.
Human Rights Watch have just released a report into the bombing of a building in Gaza back in October.
More at the link.
A single attack back in October. But its a pattern that can be observed over and over again since the start.
From Haaretz (archived link) :
Not use the term when it’s not a genocide?
That’s their claim, it isn’t actual evidence which has been proven in a court of actual intent to genocide.
Doesn’t mean that just because I dismiss your claims that Israel is doing genocide that its absolved of all warcrimes.
Tokyo was firebombed, wasn’t a genocide, neither is this.
ALL of which I’m sure is bad but still doesn’t constitute genocide.
All of it? It can be bad and not genocide? You ever thought about that?
But the evidence isn’t overwhelming, so it looks like you allowed emotion to override the fact however awful it is and how bad Israels actions are, it doesn’t constitute a genocide.
If 85% of Japan was firebombed, would it have been?
It’s apparent to me that the IDF, which used to have a reputation as one of the most highly skilled and capable militaries in the world, is no longer anywhere closer to that. Hitting civilian and aid targets isn’t just morally reprehensible, it’s harmful to actual military goals, and especially harmful to international relations and diplomacy.
I suspect that decades of far-right rule and endemic cronyism are largely responsible for this.
If they’re hitting the targets they intend to, I see no reason to doubt that their skill or capability has decreased at all.
Not when genocide is the military goal.
“Genocide” doesn’t really bother me here - it’s clear that some elements of Israeli leadership and the IDF either actively wish to empty Gaza, or are indifferent to it.
40% of Japan’s urban areas was bombed into oblivion anyway, so that’s a genocide?
Genocide is ineffective militarily. We can see that in history - the Nazis diverted resources to genocide that could have helped the front lines. If it’s intentional (and per my previous post I suspect mixed motives), then they’re even weaker and less effective than otherwise. Diverting resources for pointless (and internationally harmful) targets rather than Hamas targets.