John Brier

WOW, this might be THE most important piece of journalism on the war on Gaza since it began, by Israeli newspaper @972mag : 972mag.com/mass-assassinatio… Essentially they confirm, with unimpeachable sourcing, that the killing of civilians was all calculated and intentional. Their investigation is "based on conversations with seven current and former members of Israel’s intelligence community — including military intelligence and air force personnel who were involved in Israeli operations in the besieged Strip — in addition to Palestinian testimonies, data, and documentation from the Gaza Strip, and official statements by the IDF Spokesperson and other Israeli state institutions." What the investigation reveals is that "the Israeli army has files on the vast majority of potential targets in Gaza — including homes — which stipulate the number of civilians who are likely to be killed in an attack on a particular target. This number is calculated and known in advance to the army’s intelligence units, who also know shortly before carrying out an attack roughly how many civilians are certain to be killed." One source told them: "Nothing happens by accident. When a 3-year-old girl is killed in a home in Gaza, it’s because someone in the army decided it wasn’t a big deal for her to be killed — that it was a price worth paying in order to hit [another] target. We are not Hamas. These are not random rockets. Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home." Even more dystopian - and this might be a first in the history of warfare - a lot of the targets are identified by AI: for instance they "use of a system called 'Habsora' ('The Gospel'), which is largely built on artificial intelligence and can 'generate' targets almost automatically at a rate that far exceeds what was previously possible. This AI system, as described by a former intelligence officer, essentially facilitates a 'mass assassination factory.' According to the sources, the increasing use of AI-based systems like Habsora allows the army to carry out strikes on residential homes where a single Hamas member lives on a massive scale, even those who are junior Hamas operatives." I'm not going to copy the whole article here, you have to read this for yourself. IT IS INSANE. They've essentially been running, as the sources say, a "mass assassination factory" at a terrifying scale with massive and intended "collateral damage" (often the targets' entire families, or even sometimes much of their neighborhood), alongside an objective to destroy much of Gaza to “create a shock”, all on a population that had nowhere to escape. It'll likely remain in history books as one of the most depraved massacres in modern history.