Israel quietly rolled out a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip

Technology@lemmy.world – 617 points – 8 months ago

Israel quietly rolled out a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip

Israel has deployed a mass facial recognition program in the Gaza Strip, creating a database of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent, The New York Times reports. The program, which was created after the October 7th attacks, uses technology from Google Photos as well as a custom tool built by the Tel Aviv-based company Corsight to identify people affiliated with Hamas.

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The US uses facial recognition when I enter into the country. Wonder if it's the same tech.

Israel is using it to track terrorists and blow them up. Hopefully they make quick work of it. That's probably how they spotted some of the 10/7 crew they've rounded up.

Israel considers all Palestinians terrorists, that's part of their justification for genocide.

Year before Oct 7 - Jewish Voice for Peace

Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) and Summery by the International Court of Justice

Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated

And they deliberately target civilians.

‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza

Compared to previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, the current war — which Israel has named “Operation Iron Swords,” and which began in the wake of the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7 — has seen the army significantly expand its bombing of targets that are not distinctly military in nature. These include private residences as well as public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks, which sources say the army defines as “power targets” (“matarot otzem”).

Although it is unprecedented for the Israeli army to attack more than 1,000 power targets in five days, the idea of causing mass devastation to civilian areas for strategic purposes was formulated in previous military operations in Gaza, honed by the so-called “Dahiya Doctrine” from the Second Lebanon War of 2006.

GAZA STRIP: Famine is imminent as 1.1 million people, half of Gaza, experience catastrophic food insecurity

Latest humanitarian food insecurity assessments – the IPC classification index which is used as a reference by aid agencies – indicate that the entire population of Gaza – 2.2 million people – face "crisis" levels of food insecurity, the OCHA spokesperson said. Of that number, around 1.17 million face "emergency" levels of food insecurity, and the plight for another 500,000 is "catastrophic"

So you're also in favor of using The technology. Really helps sort out terrorists vs civilians.

Also quoting Jewish voices for peace is kinda evidence you're not paying attention. They're more biased against Israel than Al Jazeera, and they certainly don't represent Jewish people.

All of your sources actually turn up to be wildly biased. Makes sense, most bigots feel safer in their echo chambers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This technology has and will continue to be used to justify attacks on civilians by calling them terrorists.

I'm sure you also have an issue with B'TSelem and Breaking the Silence. JVP does very credible work and has consistently advocated for peace and coexistence. But here, take those facts from these other sources instead if you don't like JVP.

UN report: 80% of Gaza inhabitants relied on international aid before war - The Guardian

2023 marks deadliest year on record for children in the occupied West Bank - Save The Children - Sept 18, 23

2023 is 'deadliest year' for Palestinian children say human rights groups - New Arab - Oct 6, 23

The technology should be used to identify people who are hiding among civilians and eliminate them yes. Perfect case use for it.

JVP platforms convicted terrorists. Their founding moderator is a Lebanese based Anti semite who's been outed for years. You don't even need to be Jewish to open a chapter, using them as the voice of Jewish people is outwardly bigoted and frankly disgusting but tells me all I need to know about your ability to discern information on this topic.

You mean Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted in an Israeli Military Court, where palestinians are presumed guilty with no rights or representation, after being tortured into a confession?

Palestinians denied civil rights including Military Court

One of the most problematic practices of military courts is the use of remand in custody until the end of proceedings. This means that a person whose interrogation has been completed and who has already been formally charged is kept in detention until the legal proceedings are over. These individuals are not serving a prison sentence, have not even been sentenced, and should be presumed innocent until proven guilty... A direct outcome of this policy is that the vast majority of military court cases end in plea bargains in which the defendants plead guilty (usually in return for the prosecution dropping some of the charges). Defendants prefer to avoid a lengthy evidentiary trial, knowing that in most probability, they would be held in remand for the duration of the trial, such that even if they are ultimately acquitted, their time in detention would exceed the sentence they would receive in the plea bargain. As a consequence, the prosecution is seldom required to go through a full evidentiary trial, in which it must present evidence to prove a person guilty. Instead, the outcome of the case is decided at the time remand is granted, rather than on the basis of evidence against the defendant. And so, a pretrial decision to remand a defendant in custody before conviction renders the judicial proceeding meaningless.

Palestinian Prisoners in Israel including Child abuse

Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity

Particularly harsh are methods used by the Israel Security Agency to obtain information and “confessions”, practices well documented by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations. Methods reported by Palestinian detainees include painful shackling and binding; immobilization in stress positions; sleep deprivation; the use of threats, including against family members; sexual harassment; the extensive use of prolonged solitary confinement; and verbal abuse. All these methods amount to torture or other ill-treatment. Interrogations under torture can last for weeks, with the detainee routinely denied access to a lawyer. Torture and other ill-treatment are frequently inflicted with the complicity of medical professionals, especially on detainees staging prolonged hunger strikes.

None of the members of JVL are antisemitic. Anti-zionism and criticisms of the (apartheid) State of Israel are not remotely the same thing of antisemitism. Israel never has and never will represent all Jewish people. Your conflation of the two is genuine antisemitism, the actions of Israel in no way reflect on all Jewish people.

Why would foreigners get civil rights in the country they're attacking? America locks people in cages and separates them from their kids, they also ship them to an island off the mainland....are you trying to claim non israelis should get the same rights as Israelis?

If so, they really should have agreed to join Israel like their cousins did in 48, those 2 million Arabs have rights. Plenty of decisions up until they're being held for trial could avoid this. Maybe the Palestinian could start making some better ones at this point, they've proven to be their own worst enemy FFS.

Before 1948, Palestinian Leadership repeatedly advocated for a Unitary Binational State for decades.

Palestinian Arab Congress advocating for Unified State 1928, Arab Higher Committee advocating for Unified State 1937, Arab League advocating for Unified State 1948.

The concept of Transfer in Zionist thought and the displacement of Palestinians since the 1920s culminated into a full fledged ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948. Partition and later the Two-State Solution have been wielded by Israel to covet and annex as much Palestinian land as possible with the least amount of Palestinians.

The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948

Transfer Committee and the JNF led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate.

Plan Dalet and Details of Plan C (May 1946) and Plan D (March 1948)

After the 1948 ethnic cleansing, the remaining Palestinian population within now Israel were subject to Israel Martial Law and Defence (Emergency) Regulations, later practiced in the occupied territories after the 1967 war: Haaretz, Forward

Even today Arab Israelis are discriminated against as second class citizens including Education (2001 report). Not nearly as brutal as Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, or Gaza, but they all live under Israeli Military Control. This is Apartheid, by international definitions.

Amnesty Report, HRW Report, AIDA Report, OCHA Report on the details of the daily violence Israel uses to enforce the apartheid. Gaza Blockade is still Occupation

After the founding of Israel, the Two-State Solutions were utilized to further annex the Palestinian Occupied Territories and enact military control over Palestinians while denying them human and civil rights. Despite this, both Fatah and later Hamas have accepted a Two-State Solution on the 1967 borders, with the two most important factors being the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees and an end to the permanent occupation.

Oslo Accords MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ

History of peace process

Zuheir Mohsen said it best in '77, and all that followed is simply taqiyya. This has nothing to do with land, land which is clearly and obviously the homeland of the Jewish people, it's got everything to do with bigotry and the failure of the Arab conquest.

"The Palestinian people do not exist. There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese..... It is only for political reasons that we carefully endorse our Palestinian identity. Indeed, it is of national interest for the Arabs to encourage the existence of the Palestinians in the face of Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity is only for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new means to continue the struggle against Israel and for Arab unit"

That's insane and completely ahistorical. Even the leaders of Zionism didn't hide their intentions of Settler Colonialism. Herzl was very open about it being a colonist project. You're at odds with every New Historian who actually have researched this history.

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” - David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.” — David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

There is no justification for ethnic cleansing and stealing people's homes. Justifying it with a history 2000 years removed makes zero sense. Palestinians also did have a cultural identity. It was never nationalized before Zionism because none of the regime changes before displaced Palestinians and put them under permanent occupation.

You're claiming one of the founders of the PLOs words are inaccurate and ahistorical? C'mon man, that's just silly.

Herzl used the common language of the time, that's not debated and obviously expected. The fact of the matter is that Jews were already present, had a majority of population in numerous centers within the Land and the European refugees were a minority when the UN partitioned the land. It's also not disputed that Israel granted citizenship to the Arabs who didn't flee during the war in '48, and there's millions of them living in Israel currently as a result. Is Israel expected to grant citizenship to the people who took up arms against them and refused to acknowledge their existence? You can't seriously believe that. That's the definition of fucking around and finding out, those people left under the promise of Israel's destruction, it's not Israel's fault for not letting the Arab League uphold their promises. The Arabs were offered to partition the land, they really should have taken the offer, it was initially more generous than what was offered to the Jews. It's been the same crying ever since.

No the quote is a valid quote, but it doesn't represent what you said at all. It's stating that Palestinian nationalism only began in response to Settler Colonialism.

You're wrong about how the war started, the founding of Israel, and what happened to the Palestinians that survived the ethnic cleansing campaign. I've already provided links for all of those above.

You've almost got it right. The Palestinian identity was developed (by the KGB if we're being real here), as an anti-semitic response to the establishment of the state of Israel.

This is pretty well documented too, I'm assuming you're familiar with it. You're just leaving it out of the story because it doesn't fit your narrative..

Your claims of ethnic cleansing are also not backed up by the history as plenty of Arabs remained in Israel upon its formation. Of course they were under marital law, the newly forming nation was figuring out who it's enemies were and guess what? They were pretty much all the Arabs surrounding them. Those Arabs now serve in the IDF, sit in the Knesset and serve in the judiciary among being pretty well integrated into Israeli society. You're completely neglecting the fact that more Jews were displaced from the surrounding Arab countries. Then Arabs were displaced within the newly formed state of Israel. Many of those were violently removed from their homes in a similar fashion to what happened within Israel. Although what happened in Iraq etc was on a much grander scale as well as being much more violent. But that's again a different story. The UN has a pretty detailed report on that up on their website if you wanted to go take a look. This isn't to say that Arabs weren't displaced within the new borders of Israel. Many left voluntarily and some took up arms. There was a war happening. Unfortunately people die in wars. Going back to the twenties. The Arabs were attacking Jews then then the Hebron massacre being one of the more prominent. But there's dozens and dozens of examples in history too.

All of this is pretty easily summarized with the fact that the Arabs turned down multiple offers to develop their own state alongside the state of Israel going back to the 1930s. They refuse to this day to acknowledge the existence of the state of Israel. This has always been about hate not land. That hate has led to far too many dead Arabs but hopefully one day soon they will love their children more than they hate the Jews. I remain hopeful, but I also remain confident that Israel is not going anywhere and will not run out of ammunition if the Arabs continue to want to martyr their children.

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