A new investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals that the Israeli army has developed an artificial intelligence-based programme known as “Lavender” for its offensive on Gaza.

According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the Gaza offensive and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the operation.

The sources told +972 and Local Call that, during the first weeks of the offensive, the army almost completely relied on Lavender, which clocked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants — and their homes — for possible air strikes.

According to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the offensive that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians, the report added.

“In the bombing of the commander of the Shuja’iya Battalion, we knew that we would kill over 100 civilians,” said source B. recalling a Dec 2 bombing that the IDF Spokesperson said was aimed at assassinating Wisam Farhat.

The Lavender machine joins another AI system, ‘The Gospel’, about which information was revealed in a previous investigation by +972 and Local Call in November 2023, as well as in the Israeli military’s own publications.

Read more here.