How Israel Uses AI and Technology to Perpetuate Occupation in Palestine

Growing evidence suggests that the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza’s relentless bombardment are increasingly facilitated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and advanced software programs developed with the collaboration of Western tech giants. It was reported that Israel killed 37,000 people between October 2023 and April 2024 with an AI-powered database called Lavender. In addition to this mass killing, it was already known that Israel uses surveillance systems that are enabled by AI technology to carry out specific assassinations.

The genocidal acts of the Israeli Defense Forces have been in the global spotlight, especially since October 2023, as they have deliberately targeted, killed, and tortured civilians. What has been less spoken about is the role of AI and the sophisticated surveillance systems that this technology allows.

Palestine the Dystopia:  

Thanks to this new technology, Israel can identify, target, and eliminate Palestinians at will. Palestinians’ data are regularly updated in almost any place they go, whether they go to Jerusalem or work in illegal settlements as workers; they are illegally surveilled, making the life of Palestinians a true dystopia where they do not have the right and chance to escape. With this mass data, Palestinians are reduced to nothing more than a set of numbers.

These technologies are not only used against Palestinians in Palestine or illegal settlements, but are also being used against Palestinians in the diaspora. Israeli intelligence services have relied on AI for many years to conduct surveillance of Palestinians abroad. For example, the Israeli spyware company NSO Group hacked more than 50,000 phone numbers worldwide using a malware called Pegasus.

Indeed, as if this spyware tech is not enough, Israel is looking for an option to outsource the spying. It was reported that the Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism had a meeting with the CEO of Black Cube, a private spying firm, which he asked to spy on pro-Palestinian students in the US, primarily those who joined the campus protests across the country.

Big Tech Companies and Israeli Occupation:

Israel did not develop all of this technology by itself. It has collaborators all around the world. For example, Motorola Solutions Ltd and its Israeli subsidiary made surveillance easier thanks to their MotoEagle Wide Area Surveillance System. Amazon and Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus, an Israeli Cloud competing Project, is another example of big tech and Israeli occupation. Amazon and Google’s involvement in the project raised serious concerns as it will enable Israel to even further surveil the Palestinians. These companies are responsible for providing the technological infrastructure underlying the Israeli military and surveillance apparatus, from facial recognition systems used at checkpoints to predictive policing algorithms that use digital profiles to target Palestinians in advance and even commit individual or mass killings.  

A Global Threat:

The implications of Israel’s tech-enabled occupation of Palestine go far beyond the borders of the Palestinian territory and even Palestinians. Technologies developed and tested on Palestinians, such as the Pegasus spyware project, create significant concern about privacy all over the world. Indeed, this malware aids authoritarian regimes, as Israel sells it to states with questionable human rights records, such as Poland or the UAE.

Israeli tech companies, many closely linked to the military, market their products as “battle-tested” in Gaza and the West Bank. This makes them attractive to governments seeking to enhance their surveillance and control capabilities. For example, Israeli firm Elbit Systems, the manufacturer of the “Iron Sting” bomb, has different contracts around the world, such as militarizing the US–Mexico border, selling arms to Myanmar’s military junta, and selling drones to Azerbaijan.

The use of Palestinian lands and humans as guinea pigs, especially during an ongoing genocide, is alarming. Thus, there is a need for a global conversation about the ethics of AI and the responsibilities of technology giants and governments in conflict and occupation due to Western companies’ collaboration.

The export of this technology all over the world and also their use against Palestinians in the diaspora show that this is no longer a local Israel/Palestine issue but a global one. Consequently, the technologies being developed and deployed in this context will likely have wide-ranging implications for the future of warfare, surveillance, and civil liberties worldwide. AI and Big Tech have undoubtedly played a significant role in facilitating the killing of tens of thousands of Gazans by Israel in its genocidal war on Gaza. It is not just political and military strategy that has resulted in the occupation of Gaza and the systematic destruction of the West Bank; it is also a technologically sophisticated campaign to eradicate Palestinian resistance.

To conclude, Israel’s use of artificial intelligence and software programs, supported by Western corporations and governments, represents an additional front in their ongoing occupation and genocide of the Palestinian territories. This means that the Palestinians are being subjected to a form of technological genocide. This poses a threat not only to their lives and rights but also sets a dangerous precedent concerning the global usage of technology in conflict situations around the globe. There has to be a worldwide effort to hold both Israel and its Western collaborators accountable for these acts and to work towards a future where technology is used to defend human rights, not to oppress or abuse them. Even though Western powers support or keep silent about the current genocide and its use of technology, they should remember that if not stopped, Israel would have the potential and courage to use this against them or at least against Palestinians or human rights activists residing in their lands, which will create a sovereignty problem.