IDF Sacks, Reprimands Senior Officers After “Investigation” of Humanitarian Aid Attack World Central Kitchen inquiry offers token attempt at damage control

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Earlier this week, the IDF murdered seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers who had just delivered 100 tons of food to a Gaza warehouse.  They were nationals of many European countries, the US and Canada.  Israel has killed 200 such aid workers since 10/7. All were Palestinian.  But this incident was different. These were western nations. All allies of Israel. All supportive of Israel’s response to the Hamas attack.  When Israel drew blood of their countrymen and women, support turned to horror.  The world watched the pictures of the wrecked vehicles, the hole the missile made in the car roof which obliterated the passengers.  All people could feel is disgust.

In addition, the founder of WCK, Chef Jose Andres, is one of world’s best-known chefs and an intimate of presidents.  His anguish at the deaths of his employees was visible in the video recording he made. His demand for justice was one the world could not turn away from.  This may have been what motivated Jill Biden to say to her husband: Stop it, just stop it, Joe!”

Shortly afterward, Biden called Netanyahu and essentially read him the riot act.  In no uncertain terms, he told the Israeli leader that it has to end.  He demanded an immediate ceasefire, facilitating humanitarian aid and protecting aid workers and Gazans receiving food. It was the strongest statement BIden has made since 10/7. Long overdue, but better late than never.

The very next day, the IDF released the results of its “investigation” of the WCK killings.  It took the blame for the killings. It claimed the attack was done in error.  The army claimed that spotters saw what they believed was a Hamas gunman in one of the vehicles, and that a bag one of the workers was carrying was mistaken for a weapon. Knowing as I do, the decades of lies the IDF employs to lessen or deny blame for its crimes, none of this is credible.

WCK coordinated this relief mission with the IDF. It described the vehicles they’d be driving, the time of the trip and its route.  Yet the report claims the targeting personnel did not receive the information.  Again, this is inexcusable.  If one of the best known global humanitarian aid NGOs is working in Gaza, with the approval of the IDF–you don’t kill them.  If they told you about the trip and you approved it, you get that information to all personnel in the zone through which they will travel.  There is no such thing as an “oops” in such a situation: as in oops, we didn’t pass the message along to the right officer–our bad.

In order to show the world it took responsibility for the crime, it sacked two senior officers and issued a reprimand to three of their superiors, including the head of the Southern Command, who is responsible for Israel’s military operation in Gaza. Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi meted out the following punishment:

Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, head of Southern Command, reprimanded

Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen, commander 162nd Division, reprimanded

Col. Yair Zukerman, Nahal Brigade commander, reprimanded

Col. Nochi Mendel, Nahal brigade chief of staff, sacked

Unknown Major, Nahal brigade firepower coordination officer, sacked

While all of these officers bear blame for the tragedy, they are the fall-guys. They didn’t “make mistakes.” They did precisely what the army wanted them to do.  It wanted its officers to target and kill as many Gazans as possible.  Preferably fighters, but once that supply was exhausted all of Gaza became a virtual free fire zone. The WCK convoy was just another target among many.

The IDF developed an “innovative” method for developing these targets. It wasn’t satisfied with the conventional way armies make such decisions: based on human intelligence, research, social media, etc.  Then deliberating how, when, or whether to target someone.  Then, when the quarry is discovered, other decisions are made when and where to do so.  Up until the second a missile is fired, many considerations are weighed. At least that’s the way it should happen in a proper targeting process.

Automated death

But Israel wasn’t satisfied with a method involving painstaking research–intensive human preparation and deliberation. If it could automate a large portion of these processes, using AI algorithms it could vastly expand its targeting capability. The more targets, the greater the elimination of the enemy.  All that was required was human input of vast amounts of data concerning individuals, addresses, phone numbers, email, social media accounts, etc.  That would also include the locations of homes, stories, churches, mosques, universities, schools, power stations, water treatment plants, police stations, etc. By cross-checking both sets of data, the IDF could pinpoint targets and their location.  It could also target the buildings themselves for destruction. Then it could provide the algorithm the parameters for targets: age, sex, family, jobs, social connections, friends.

The IDF dubbed this innovation in modern warfare, Lavender.  Eventually, it gave the army 37,000 human targets.  This, in large part, is why Israel has murdered 33,000 Gazans.

Yuval Abraham offers a chilling account of how the AI program was implemented on the battlefield.  In conventional conflicts, human beings play a vital role in the process of determining how to fight and who to fight.  As I wrote above, human intelligence and decisions are made at every step of the war-fighting process.  In this way, armies attacks the enemy. The real enemy. So that they don’t kill bystanders, the innocent, civilians. Of course, armies make mistakes, sometimes vast, devastating mistakes.  Sometimes they even do so deliberately.  But at least there are human beings who are–or should be– accountable for these decisions.

Israel has removed almost all of that human element.  The algorithm provides the target list along with coordinates to reach and kill them.  Then a drone operator follows the machine’s instructions, pushes a button and the target is destroyed.

How long did a human being ponder over whether to attack that particular person? 20 seconds.  That’s all. One person took 20 seconds to decision whether to murder another; and did that tens of thousands of times. In that 20 seconds, what were the parameters for a human decision on whether to kill or not? Only one: make sure the target is not a woman. That’s all.

In the past, the IDF imposed far more constraints on assassinations. If the target was near children or other civilians; if innocent family members would be harmed, operations might be called off.  Over time, it removed many of those constraints. Lavender has removed almost all of them. In fact, one of the “best” ways to succeed in killing someone was while he was at home with his family.  During the day, an individual travels to many locations and it is hard to predict or pinpoint their location.  But almost all people spend large portions of time with family in their home.  That’s the “best” way to assure “success.”

The human input for the algorithm determined that targets should be struck in their homes to guarantee a higher kill rate.  And you can kill virtually anyone when you have eliminated constraints.  972’s Abraham portrayed a system in which even the slightest connection to Hamas or military activity merited inclusion on the death list: if someone had a family member identified with Hamas, the uninvolved relative became a target. If someone frequented a cafe or other business where wanted men congregated, the algorithm assumed they were implicated in hostile activity.  If someone made a phone call in which they mentioned the name of a wanted person, they became a legitimate target.

Abraham recounts interviews with soldiers who processed Lavender’s information, in which they said that once they gave the lists to the intelligence officers, the latter would come back and say they’d finished the last batch and needed new targets.  They were starving for new humans to kill.  The object was to feed the maw of the killing machine.  Lavender was happy (if you call an algorithm happy) to comply.

IDF officers who oversaw Lavender conceded it had a 10% false positive rate.  In other words, of those 37,000 targeted individuals, nearly 4,000 should not have been attacked.  Since this is the IDF, which is known for lying regarding any matter that reflects badly on it–we can assume the actual failure rate is higher, perhaps much higher.  One piece of circumstantial evidence is the number of civilians killed during the war.  Up to 70% are women or children.  Over 20,000 of the dead were civilians.  So don’t tell me the failure rate is only 10%.

This is the future of modern warfare.  Remove the human element as much as possible.  Humans slow the process down.  They deliberate, they ponder, they question. Better to let machines make these decisions. They correlate, integrate, digest millions of billions of bits of data  in seconds, and distill it in a neat package. A massive kill list.

Unit 8200 and the “growth engine” of modern war

As I mentioned above, this diabolical system was devised by Unit 8200, the IDF SIGINT corps.  The identity of its chief, along with all army senior officers (except the chief of staff and regional commanders) is a closely guarded secret.  But the Guardian published his name after researching a book he published under his initials, Y.S., and linking information in it to other personally identifiable data accessible online.

Brig. Gen. Yossi Sariel self-published The Human Machine Team, which extols the wonders of Lavender.  THis is an excerpt from the book’s blurb [italics are mine]:

One of the world’s leading managers in the field of Artificial Intelligence unveils the secrets to creating synergy between human and artificial intelligence that will revolutionize our world.

A machine can use big data to generate information better than humans. However, a machine can’t understand context, doesn’t have feelings or ethics, and can’t think ‘out of the box’. Therefore, rather than prioritize between humans and machines, we should create The Human-Machine Team, which will combine human intelligence and artificial intelligence, creating a ‘super cognition’.

Brigadier General Y.S…commander of an elite intelligence unit, and winner of the prestigious Israel Defense Prize for his artificial intelligence based anti-terrorism project, wrote his book…to address how the combination between human and artificial intelligence can solve national security challenges and threats, lead to victory in war, and be a growth engine for humankind. He offers a new perspective on how to lead nations and organizations to the future that has already become the present.

Note that Sariel suggests a ‘marriage’ between human being and AI (the “human-machine team”); something that didn’t happen in Gaza.  Humans were virtually removed from the process, and the machine played the predominant role. It is all too easy for any nation using Lavender to fall into this trap.  It is too enticing, not to mention too complicated, to integrate the two. Thus there is no “super cognition.” There is hardly even cognition. There is merely savage, uncontrolled death meted out by algorithm.

The notion that Lavender provides any benefit to mankind is ludicrous. The claims by supporters of war-based AI, that it will decrease the human presence on the battlefield and therefore reduce casualties is equally specious.  It may reduce the number of fatalities for the attacker. But it infinitely increases casualties among the victims. Thus AI is a human-created nightmare wreaking mayhem on the human beings whom it singles out.

AI critics have calculated a 5% chance that AI will destroy human existence (that percentage has certainly increased with the implementation of Lavender).  Its use in Gaza war has brought this one step closer to reality.  Imagine, for example, a war in which both sides possess such a weapon.  Instead of 33,000 dead we could have many multiples of that wiped out.

כמה מקציני המילואים ב-8200 (שאת חלקם אני מכיר אישית 25 שנה) ושהתייצבו מייד ב-7 באוקטובר אמרו לי שתת-אלוף יוסי שריאל צריך להתפטר בשל קריסת היחידה תחת פיקודו ואחריותו האישית למחדל ההתרעה (שאותה כלל לא תפס כתפקידו). הספר באמזון הוא רק קוריוז שמייצג בעיה גדולה הרבה יותר

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) April 5, 2024

Barak Ravid, Axios and Haaretz correspondent, spoke with numerous current Unit 8200 personnel and veterans about this incident, and Sariel in general. Many of them are calling for his sacking.  He wrote:

Several reservist commanders in 8200…who participated in 10/7 said that…Sariel must resign due to the collapse of the unit under his command, and his personal responsibility for failing to raise the alarm, which he didn’t even grasp was his role.  The book on Amazon is a mere curiosity, which highlights a much greater problem.

Actually, Ravid is wrong about one of his claims. An officer in 8200 did detect Hamas preparations for an attack.  She passed her findings on to superiors who dismissed her intelligence.  Thus, the extent of the security failure is infinitely compounded.

Another example of such failure is the ease with which the Guardian exposed Sariel’s indentity. He left bread crumbs online which led its journalists directly to him:

The embarrassing security lapse is linked to a book he published on Amazon, which left a digital trail to a private Google account created in his name, along with his unique ID and links to the account’s maps and calendar profiles.

…The book included an anonymous email address that can easily be traced to Sariel’s name and Google account.

The IDF’s elite intelligence unit, tasked with exposing the secrets of the nation’s enemies, failed to protect its own.  This is yet another example of the hubris which permitted Hamas to prepare a massive attack under the IDF’s nose.  An attack which two different officers–one in 8200 and the other a video surveillance analyst–detected; and which were ignored by superiors.

Exporting Death to a global market

Israel pioneers military technology and weaponry.  It is the surveillance state par excellence. It uses facial recognition software to maintain a database of millions of Palestinians. It has data mining methods which predict who will plan terror attacks.  It was among the first to engage in targeted assassinations using drones.  It uses new cancer-causing weapon which burns flesh, rather than penetrating it as a bullet would. It has also developed cyberwarfare capabilities which enable the interception of electronic communications.  It assassinated the founder of Iran’s nuclear program through a fully automated AI attack with barely any human intervention.

Not only are Israelis proud of such accomplishments. They exploit them as a major national export to a global market of armies, intelligence agencies and law enforcement.  Israel is the tenth-largest arms exporter in the world.  The products themselves are only part of the process. An equally significant element is the export of the militarist ideas and security obsession which under-girds them.  Any army buying Lavender will use it precisely as Israel has, and adopt those attitudes leading to the wholesale slaughter of human beings.

There is no international regulation of AI.  Rogue states like Israel may develop and use it as they see fit.  They may employ it to maximum effect, inflicting the terror on adversaries; leaving a trail of human misery in its wake.  The lack of such standards is a major failure of the laws of war and international protocols.

Major figures in this field, like Edward Snowden, have called for banning all use of AI in this field.  But unfortunately, the cat may be out of the bag.  Generals throughout the world will be salivating at the results of Israel’s Gaza “field test.”  Lavender is the golem Israel has unleashed in the world.  Unlike Rabbi Judah Loew, the world will not succeed in returning this monster to the clay from which it sprang.  It is the ravening beast run amok, wreaking havoc on humanity; Israel’s “gift” to the world.