Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur for human rights and counterterrorism, has said that reports the Israeli army decided it was permissible to kill 15 or 20 Palestinians for every junior Hamas operative could constitute war crimes, Al Jazeera reports.

“If true, many Israeli strikes in Gaza would constitute the war crimes of launching disproportionate attacks,” said Saul in a post on social media.

Saul was responding to a report in +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language media outlet Local Call, which revealed the Israeli army has identified tens of thousands of Gaza Palestinians as potential targets using an AI targeting system called “Lavender”.