Introduction

Today I’m speaking with Meron Rapoport, who is an award -winning Israeli journalist and writer. He is the ex -head of the news department in Haaretz and is now an independent journalist with Local Call. Mehron was one of the people behind the groundbreaking article, Lavender, the AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza, written by Yuval Abraham and published in the +972 magazine and Local Call. As one of the journalists working on this investigation, Mehron joins me today to discuss their findings, on how AI has contributed to the incredible death toll and destruction we’re continuing to watch in Gaza. Meron, thank you very much for joining me on The Voices Of War

Thank you.

So before we get into the conversation, as I’ve alluded to in the introduction, you’ve been intimately involved with this investigation. Just for our audience, can you tell us exactly what level of, what was the level of your involvement in the article?

Censorship in Israeli Media

I was working very closely with Yuval. Also from…what to ask, what could be interesting. Of course, the sources, it was all his work and it’s tremendous and really incredible work that he has done. He’s developed really confidence with sources in an area which is not very easy to have confidence with. But I really…From the moment he said that he has this connection, we discussed over what could be interesting. And then, of course, I didn’t attend the interviews themselves, but I read all the transcripts, the full transcripts, and then the editing process, and really I followed it very closely. And working with the censorship, with the censorship you have done, to remember that in Israel, you have to send everything that relates to the army and army activities, you have to send it to the military censorship. And it passed. passed. So it passed the censorship. OK, so two questions. We were a little bit surprised. No doubt.

OK, so firstly, just on that, because I think it’s an interesting aspect that…is probably again not really understood about Israel and the power of the IDF. When you say censorship, so everything that you’ve write about the military, any activities of the military have to be approved by the military?

Yes, it’s not exactly the military. It’s a unit that works under the Ministry of Defense. But there are soldiers there. And I think the head of the censorship unit is appointed by the Minister of Defense. And it’s not only things that have to do with the army. It could be also…international relations, something that is sensitive, international relations, it could be a trade even if it’s the sensitive like oil where Israel is importing oil, all kind of things and of course nuclear, everything that has to do with nuclear, everything has to pass the censorship, you’re obliged and if you’re not you could, you could theoretically face prison, but at least fine or could be brought to trial if you don’t send it and if you don’t follow what you are being told to take out.

Media Coverage Inside Israel

Is that a surprise? I mean, it’s a surprise for me to hear that. But is that a surprise and are people generally surprised in the kind of global media that this is the case?

I think people are not aware. People are not aware. I think it’s the only as far as I know, the only democracy in the world that has such a process. Yes. And I think people are not really aware that, you know, it leads to some kind of self-censorship because, you know in advance what you cannot write about. You know that there are certain issues, certain details, certain information, certainly certain technologies that you cannot discuss and therefore you don’t even send them to the censorship. Because you know that there’s… So it leads also to a whole process of self-censorship.

Well, I guess it limits your dialogue or your, you know, if you know it’s not going to pass, then of course, you’re not going to invest effort into investigating that particular story.

Exactly.

AI and Target Selection – Lavender System

But this story passed. I mean, you said that you were surprised. Tell us a bit about that, because it is surprising that it’s passed. Again, knowing what I know now.

Public Sentiment in Israel

Yes, we were a little bit surprised. The names, everything was, I can speculate, but I have my speculation why it was public, authorized. You know, I even heard some conspiracy theories that, you know, Israel wants to sell these kind of systems and, you know, publication.

There’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? That’s a public relation to this system, so, but I really don’t know.

Wow. And I particularly find it interesting because you talk about in the article about six intelligence officers. And as I mentioned to you offline, I mean, I’m a recently transitioned intelligence officer from the Australian Army. So, I was reading what you’re writing about with close interest. But…Perhaps you can just give us a little bit, obviously I know you can’t disclose your sources, but perhaps you can give us a little bit more insight as to who they were in the kind of machine, how close were they to the decision points, how close were they to the decision makers, you know, what kind of access did these six intelligence officers that make the core of the article and give it strength to the actual AI programs.

There were most of them, I would say medium or even low level officers, officers of course, not regular soldiers in the army. And they were really involved in the framing of suspects in Gaza and in the not the actual bombing because the actual bombing is done by the by the Air Force of course that they then and the war rooms in which and you know when it’s just talking about I’m…not unarmed, how do you say the word?

Drones.

Collateral Damage and Targeting Practices

Oh drones, yeah sorry UAVs and drones. They’re not the drone operators, they’re not the ones who push really the button whether it’s in the plane, the warplane or drone operator or these kind of things but they were in the rooms in which it was decided this is…a terrorist that could be on the list and that he is at home, that he is where we want to hit him. Yeah, and that’s interesting. So in a sense, they were not the very high level officers. But sometimes my experience as a journalist told me that in most cases, these are the ones that have really the full information and they’re not, you know, they know because sometimes you decide something above and you sign the policy that you should act like this. But in fact, it was managed in a different way. So these are people who know how it really went, you know, how, how, how did it go?

They are ultimately the ones that are carrying out the plans and the policies, et cetera. So, yeah, which again makes sense from kind of rank structure. Okay, so before we kind of get bogged down too far, look, the whole world has kind of erupted over these, at least momentarily, unfortunately, very, very momentarily over the report. It was discussed in the White House. You know, the UN Secretary General has talked about it

Most media houses carried it at least for, you know, for that 24 hour news cycle. And now unfortunately it’s disappeared. But maybe there are a few in the audience who haven’t really read the report in detail. So perhaps can you give us a kind of big picture understanding of what it is that you found and why we should care?

I think, of course, it’s a very long piece and a lot of details. But I would divide mainly into two. The first is the technological side. What we have discovered is that in this war, because there was a decision in the beginning of the war, to hit everyone involved in Hamas or Islamic Jihad. And not to focus only on commanders, high commanders, everyone related to Hamas could be a target person. So as these are great numbers, nobody really knows how many, but let’s say it’s in the tens of thousands. It was difficult for the army to make this list by a usual work of intelligence officer, checking every name, checking all the information, HUMINT, SIGINT and all the information that you have. And…going to process one by one. So they applied a system that was there before but not as an AI machine. It will create a system, AI machine that will create a list of Hamas or jihad, Islamic jihad operatives. And now this was done by again by AI. What does it mean? It means that for example, they had, they knew for example, they have a sample of 100 Hamas combatants.

They know, knew for sure that they are Hamas. Then they took the features. Who are they talking to? Who are they meeting? How the pattern of life, their pattern of life, so changing their phones. Exactly, their pattern of life. This is also very explained widely in a book written by the commander of 8200 unit, the unit for surveillance, following the pattern of life and taking the pattern of life of this 100, taking it on the whole population of Gaza, 2 .3 million, and then giving them grades. What is the probability that there are Hamas or Islamic Jihad activists? And in this way, they reached a list of 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza that were related to Hamas. Now, related to Hamas was, as far as we know, was very broad. It could be, it is, of course, commanders, Nukhba, the elite unit that were involved in the massacre of October 7. People generally that crossed the border because they knew who crossed the border and who did not. But also low-level Hamas officers, even people related maybe on the civilian wing of Hamas, everyone.

This was the list and the list itself was produced mainly by AI. Now, when I say mainly, is that yes, there is a human at the end that checks and verify that X or Y should be on the list. The machine gives them the name and he is supposed to check.

But we were told by various sources that this check took, this checking could took maybe 20 seconds, something very, very brief. They took it for granted, they didn’t have time. And to make a mistake was not a big thing. Because first of all, there was pressure from above to have as many targets as possible in a very, very quickly, in the quickest way possible and as many as possible in the shortest time possible. And this system, they knew in the…experiment they did at the beginning, it has 90% that it is right, 90% of the cases. So they knew in advance that 10% are mistakes, the people who has nothing to do with Hamas. No. Yes, it happens everywhere when you use, I think, AI.

The difference only that this was a death list, basically, that you add by a machine. And you know that 10% of the people you add to the mission, to the list are not has nothing to do with this. So this was the technological. What adds to the technological side is once you had this list, you put according to all kinds of parameters, you put it on another system called by the soldiers, we understand maybe it was not the official name of the system, but the soldiers nicknamed it, ‘Where’s Daddy?’ Now, this system, once you are on the list, you put this into the system and this system tells you whether he is at his home, this person. Because home is the easiest thing. It’s a fixed place. It’s not following him in the car or in the tunnels or running around. It’s a fixed place.

So ‘Where’s Daddy?’ would have told them listen this X is at his home at this neighborhood and he’s there. Then there was the only check that was done that there was no mistake was to verify if it’s a woman or a man.

If they found that this is a woman, then it’s a mistake and they didn’t pass it on to the Air Force to strike them. But if it’s a man, they didn’t really check further.

Limitations of Israeli Intelligence

How did they check? Is this through signals intelligence? They would check from the phone.

Yes, these are the things that the censorship does not allow us very much to go into. But you can imagine how you can find out if someone is a man or a woman. Now, this is the technological side. There are other aspects of technology that maybe I’ll go into, but the other side…And I think this is, of course, the AI side received most of the attention internationally. But I think what is not less important is what use was done with this information. Okay, the information, this list was built by AI. And a program would tell you, if he’s at home or not. Then what do we do with it? Now here comes, I think, two very important issues that we discovered. First, that the preferred location for attacks on this list on these 37,000 was the private home. When they are at home. For the army, this was a military target, private homes of people. Now they told us that it was decided that way because it’s easier, because it’s easier than to chase them all around Gaza. In fact, they know where the home is. They have this information. They just, you know, cross, make a check and so it was easier for them. That means the civilian surroundings were in a, as a result, were the preferred part of the air strikes because the people were chosen to be attacked at home. At home means civilians surrounding by their families or by their neighbours. This is a decision that is, I would say, at least very debatable to attack people at their private homes. It’s like, you know, soldiers coming out, coming for a vacation. They told us even that they thought about it, that if it’s an Israeli soldier coming to a vacation and sleeping at his parents’ home, then this building is a target. It’s very debatable. What adds to that, and probably was one of the causes for the loss of so many civilian lives, was…what the collateral damage. Now, the collateral damage is not decided by the intelligence officers. It is passed to the Air Force, to the units that execute the attacks. Now, before, what we were told is that before this war, the collateral damage for a senior Hamas or Islamic Jihad commander was between 10 to 5 people. Meaning that if you hit him at home, then you are allowed to kill up to 5 to 10 civilians, his family and maybe his neighbours. Which is the calculation basically, it’s justified through the military advantage gained, which falls under the proportionality clause.

Yes, of course.

Yes, this is approved all by the unit for international law in the Israeli army. Now, what they told us that at least in the first six weeks of the war, before the ceasefire that took place in the end of November 23, the collateral damage for a junior Hamas operative, maybe even someone who is active in the civilian wing of Hamas, or Islamic Jihad, Hamas mainly, was between 10 to 20. Meaning that when you attack him at home, you kill him and 10 other civilian or 20, his children, his wife, his cousins or whatever, his parents. For senior Hamas commanders, the collateral damage allowed was what they said, three digits, a hundred or even more. This is of course, a huge change and this could explain, I’m not saying it’s the only explanation, because of course we don’t have the whole picture, could explain the level of civilian casualties in the war. And especially if these soldiers, these officers were talking mainly about the first six weeks of the war and in the first six weeks of the war, there were 15,000 Palestinian killed. Up till now, we have almost five months later, in the five months that followed, we have another 20. So in five months, up till now, up till mid-April, we have…20,000. It’s huge. In the first six weeks it was 15. So, the toll was very high.

So, I think here there’s a combination of the technology and the use that was done. What, you know, combined the two is also how, how collateral damage you have to estimate how many people are in the surrounding, in this apartment building. What we discovered is it was done really statistically, meaning that, for example, they had an estimation that in a certain neighbourhood, 50% of the people fled. So, they would say, we estimate that in this building, there are 20 people. If 50% fled, then there are 10. They didn’t really check if that was the case. It could have been that everyone left this building and there was only the Hamas activists.

But it could have been that other families fled to this building and there were not 20, there were 40. And as they had no time to make the check, you know, post-bombing to check what was the result, because they had no time, then they didn’t even really know who was hit, if the target itself was hit or not, how much collateral damage was there, really they didn’t really know. So, this is one of the reasons that they rely on the civilian side at least, they rely quite completely on the numbers given by the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Which in itself is absurd because that’s also publicly in the kind of global domain is the figure that they keep using and saying, well, no, we can’t trust that figure because that’s a figure by Hamas. No, they didn’t. We published an earlier piece saying that they even, you know, followed these people, the doctors in the ministry to find out if they are making tricks with the numbers and they reach the conclusion that these numbers are reliable. They have their own numbers for the numbers of Hamas and Islamic Jihad combatants. They have their own estimation. It comes also, I think, from the field commanders, not only from the air. So, they have their estimation that is separate for combatants.

And I guess that estimation. Those killed in the air attacks or on civilian surroundings, they just rely on the numbers, Palestinian numbers. Yeah. I mean, just to kind of summarize some of the things you said, because it will allow us to then go on to the next point I want to discuss, but the 37,000 is the number, the peak number that the Lavender AI system had produced, as you were told. And, you know, within those, there’s a 10% error. That’s an accepted error that in a regular course of combat operations in times gone by, somebody would filter through, and they would be looking for a confirmation. I can certainly speak to our military and other militaries that I’ve seen how they operate. We would generally, and in my experience, never prosecute a target that hasn’t been positively identified. So, through various means, whether it’s through human intelligence, signals intelligence, whatever else, we would confirm that that is the person we were about to prosecute. But because of the pressure, and I can understand from a soldier’s perspective, the pressure is so heavy and so high, because right from the top down, it was from the first minute, all of this is about the complete destruction of Hamas. So, in other words, all of those 37,000 minus you know, 3,700, 10% error, all of them are basically fair go to be exterminated. That’s one point. That’s one point. But the issue is where this number, 37,000, basically goes to scale up to 20 times or even a hundred times is when you look at how the number is actually used. And that’s the true problem that you’re…

Not true, both of them are significantly and giant problems of IHL, but this is the one that we’re seeing play out in the field that these numbers are now, it’s not just 37,000, it is now times five, times 10, times 20, because they are being targeted specifically at their home locations.

And when firstly, they’re not positively identifying individuals, because I think you talk about that quite often, quite extensively in the article that there, you know, it could have been a brother, a cousin, somebody else that the phone was given to, that’s what’s being prosecuted. But of course, when they can’t confirm who’s even there, that’s why we see that potentially that certainly sounds like a plausible reason why the numbers are so insanely extreme.

Munitions and Military Logic

Coupled with that, I think, and this is where I want to go next, is then another really important section of the piece is the munitions that were then used. And maybe that’s something you can talk about now, because we were talking about, because 37,000, out of those 37,000, let’s say that 30,000 are your general soldiers and let’s say 7,000 are some level of commanders, medium to senior level commanders. That’s a lot of targets. to prosecute really, really quickly when you’re just pushing things out and fighting this war in six weeks. How did Israel solve the problem or logistical problem or IDF solved the problem of who to allocate which type of munitions to, who the target and when?

We, again, these are so many Israel targeted Palestinian in Gaza in really multiple ways. There were attacks before the army went in, not really even to flatten certain neighbourhoods, we’re in the northern Gaza Strip in Beit Lahia and Beit Hanun of course, during fighting, Israeli soldiers are being fired from a building and then they notify the Air Force or tanks or whatever. This place has been targeted and what we described. And in the tunnels, there were…many so we don’t know exactly and again some of the some of the munitions was from drones. What we were told considering this list is that for low-ranking Hamas officers, combatants, they prefer to use dumb munitions and dumb bombs. And the idea was really, I would say, very cynical, is that because these were low level and also low in the value for military operation, because they were not really important, they were at home and not in fighting. And foot soldiers, yeah.

Usually the fighting, the bombing was 3 a.m. in the morning or 4 a.m. in the morning when people are sleeping. So, it’s not really during fighting. So, they were not really important per se. So, they said in this case, we will use dumb munitions which are cheaper and save the more expensive guided munitions for people that we really want to target that are really important. So, in a strange way, could be that the level of collateral damage for people not involved was higher for low ranking Hamas officers because they would use this dumb bombing, which yes, the army is saying that even these bombs are quite accurate, but again, they’re certainly less accurate than the guided bombs. They cannot, you have to tear down a whole building. It’s not that you can send a missile that goes to the window of the second floor or whatever. It’s dumb. It’s not intelligent and it kills, it has the potential to kill more civilians or more uninvolved people.

That’s, I mean, the logic of that, it is so pragmatic. It is so rational. It is so cold. It is so systematic that it gives you an idea as to what must have been going, how. you know, the senior commanders who are then giving the orders to, of course, the mid-level and those that are carrying out the orders in the Air Force, et cetera. It almost gives you an understanding of how they saw the situation.

That’s a scary place to be. I mean, I’m speaking now as a recently discharged soldier. That’s a very scary place to be that you are that desensitized to human suffering, that this is merely statistics. And you do again talk about the statistics of how these calculations were done. I mean, they were kind of into half numbers. So, if this building had seven people previously, well, 50% of that left that’s, hey, there’s three and a half people in this building statistically.

You know, that meets our threshold we can target, which again is just so, it’s bizarre how rational and cold it is. Based on what you know about IDF and what you’re seeing in Israel right now, how much does this correspond to the broader sentiment, both of the military you’ve spoken to, but also everyday Israelis people not in uniform, people who are just living and going about their day to day business?

I would, I would, that, that, that two aspects here, I think one is really, after, of course, the trauma of October 7th, the atrocities, the killing of civilians, abducting civilians, killing children, people in the, at the party, and really, and of course the raid, everything is really trauma that I think is where these Jewish Israelis will carry with them for years. But this was a big trauma and there was…will or order and will there was really people felt that unless we destroy completely Hamas we cannot be safe here and that was really I think this could be done even rationally but you know this is that this is a Nazi organization that is determined to wipe out Israel and Israelis, kill them all. And if we don’t destroy this organization, our society, our way of everything is in danger. This is one thing. Second is…I would say more, you know, simple revenge, just to revenge. And I would add the third thing, but this is not something that the officers told us. This is something that I maybe can speculate. From everything that the Israeli army has done, not only what we were talking in this investigation, it is quite certain that one of the goals, military goals of the campaign, of the military campaign, was to make life in Gaza impossible and to drive away most of its population from certainly from Gaza City, the city of more than a million people with its surrounding and even maybe at a certain point from the Gaza Strip at all to push them away out of Gaza. We see that even today there is Yedioth Ahronoth, the largest circulation newspaper in Israel, published an interview with a general that was responsible for the main force in Northern Gaza, and he said, that’s his quote: ‘We entered Gaza like a herd of elephants, and we left only debris’. This is what he is saying. This is his quote. And we see a lot of evidence for that. The fact that Israel now sees the preventing Gazans from going back to their homes as a strategic issue to prevent the people of Gaza from going back home, which is a normal thing after fighting is over, should be a normal thing. Israel sees that as a strategic asset.

And and even the distraction now after Israel the Israeli forces withdrew from Khan Yunis and certain TV show’s people said, you know, there were these pictures of the destruction of Khan Yunis all over the international media and it appeared also even in the Israeli media, although generally speaking, there’s very little coverage of what’s going on in Gaza, but people on TV, serious journalists were saying, listen, see what destruction we have in Gaza. This is the victory. So I think…This is not something that we heard from the intelligence officers. I must be very clear. This is my reading into it, that the very destruction of Gaza was an aim in itself. It was an aim in itself. So it fitted. It was not only this, because there were other many issues. A large extent of the destruction was done after Israel  took many of the places. We have seen all this, you know, soldiers very proudly bombing and making explode, bringing down whole neighbourhoods. So it was not done only by this campaign that I’m talking about.

But I think if you enlarge a little bit the picture, then I think it fits in. Will to just destruction.

And you quite clearly make the point in the article that this was the first six weeks and you’ve already made that point in our discussion. And as you’ve also said, we’re well past the six month mark now. How, from what you know, has there been a change in the collateral damage estimate or how the, how Lavender taps into systems like ‘Where’s Daddy?’, has there been a change? I suspect so given the death toll has plateaued somewhat as morbid as that sounds that it’s, you know, 20,000 in five months and, uh, you know, 15,000, uh, in six weeks. But, what do you know about the kind of shift and why?

Yes, there was a shift. Certainly, certainly there was a shift. I think it has to do with two things. One is, yes, outside pressure, America and mainly American pressure, but also international community, UN, despite the fact that Israel despises the UN, but still the UN and all kinds of… And the ICJ decision, I’m sure, would have had at least some… Certainly, certainly, certainly the ICJ. It’s quite clear that the ICC is also looking into it, although there’s nothing official. There was yesterday on the Israeli TV a report that…that Israel received reports that there’s going to be an arrest warrant by the end of this month for Netanyahu. I don’t know if it’s true, but yes, certainly this played a role. Second thing, from the perspective of what we describe, people were not at home anymore because there were no homes. The buildings were not there.

People either spread out or whatever, or to the beach or whatever, either went to the tunnels, if they were really warrior combatants, and maybe killed there in the tunnels and in the fighting itself, or went to the shelters. And the shelters, as far as we know, the shelters are, Israel does not target them. Shelters meaning, it’s schools, mainly schools, mainly schools in which many people gather. Even if there are Hamas militants there, they don’t target him. That’s a line. That’s a red line. As far as we know, it was not crossed.

So the buildings are no longer there, the houses, the apartments are no longer there. So there’s no… Whether Lavender is… We know, for example, that when they take a certain neighbourhood and people go out of these shelters or are asked to move to another part of Gaza…that they screen them and arrest some of the men. Whether this screening them on the ground has to do with Lavender, we don’t know. Technologically, of course, it’s not impossible. If you have this system, then you can link it to facial recognition should not be too difficult.

We really don’t know. How sophisticated? There’s not something that I can say.

Yeah. How sophisticated is Israel’s understanding of Gaza, Palestinians in Gaza, who’s where the people, I mean, of course, Lavenda, as you talked about, I mean, 37,000 is a significant number of a list, which suggests, I mean, you know, that’s roughly around the figure as well that we keep hearing about how many Hamas fighters there are. Depends on who you ask, but it is in the tens of thousands. How good is Israel’s eyes and ears in Gaza to even rely on the algorithms that will then calculate whatever they’re calculating?

It’s a big question, a big question, of course. I think Israel before on October 6th thought that it has…a lot of information on everyone that is worth knowing about in Gaza. In the West Bank of course, but also in Gaza. Gaza was a little bit more complicated because there were no soldiers on the ground in Gaza. So it was mainly, there was HUMINT of course, but…and they were quite confident that they know everything. 6.30 in the morning, October 7, it turns out that this was not the case. So I want to take very cautiously how much do they know. Certainly, even despite my suspicion and…of what the army is saying, it’s quite certain that when you…you have boots on the ground and you have soldiers everywhere and you arrest thousands of thousands of Hamas people and you go to the tunnels and you take the computers. We don’t know if all, but we take some of the computers. Then certainly you have much more information than you have before. This is…It will be strange if it does not be the case, but I think Hamas didn’t, I think they didn’t need our investigation in order to know that Israel is all over the place, certainly technologically. I think they were quite aware of that. even before. And this is one of the reasons that, probably, I don’t have all the details, but some things I’ve read is that they move to low-tech communication meets in order not to be detected by Israel that so they, it’s not new for them. So I think we have to be cautious about if Israeli knows on everyone, where everyone is, I think it is limited. And we see that, you know, they really want to get a Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif but they didn’t. They’re the commanders of Hamas, the political leader and the military leader of Hamas in Gaza. And they didn’t yet. So, I don’t know if they know, but they are surrounded by hostages, as media reports are implying, or they don’t really know.

They have better information, certainly. But after seeing the failure of October 7, I would still doubt it. I’ve got a couple more questions. First one is that you made a kind of passing comment that not much about what’s happening in Gaza is actually reported in Israel. Can you talk a little bit more about that? How much is the everyday average Israeli aware of firstly the human cost, but then of course the infrastructure, the physical costs that Gaza is paying?

I would say that up till the last three weeks, very, very little, almost nothing, almost nothing. Very little. And if, well, it was many times presented as fake news by Hamas. In many cases that they did show footage from Gaza. And I can understand how they…how they could claim it because there were no independent journalists. No international journalists, not Western journalists. It’s funny because Israel does not allow them to go in. And then it says there’s no reliable journalists in Gaza because there are no Western journalists, but it’s Israel that doesn’t allow them to go in. But so very little after the withdrawal from Khan Yunis and the little normality that returned to Gaza, you know, very, of course, very limited, but still some normality, certainly to Khan Yunis, there is more. The hunger is a little bit covered. The hunger issues a little bit covered and receives attention even not only from more, you know, left wing or also even more mainstream media and mainstream leaders and demonstrations, in the demonstrations it is mentioned the issue of hunger.

That’s very little. I think people do not start to grasp the magnitude. I don’t know so many people in Gaza, but two people that I know in Gaza, one lost his whole family, 21 person. He was outside the country, he was, during the time of the war. And he was, no, he and all his family, father and mother, sister, brothers and sibling, everyone, 20 people killed. And someone else that I was working with from distance because it’s difficult to meet people from Gaza, his wife was killed, his son was killed, and the whole family of his brother was wiped out. He is my age, 60 something. So, I don’t think Israelis even start to grasp how vast it is, how really…that whole families just disappeared. And of course the hunger, the hunger is being disputed also, Israel is trying to say that there’s no hunger in Gaza and trucks, that enough trucks are passing. They seem not to convince, the international media, but they convinced the Israeli public.

Is the irony of the Israeli situation lost on people there? I mean, that Israel is plausibly accused of having met the threshold of a genocide, you know, and now superimpose over the top of that these kind of clinical, efficient killing of people through AI enabled systems through, you know, more bombs than two new more, more, more explosive than two nuclear bombs, et cetera, et cetera. 70% of residential areas unliveable. Is the irony lost, and if it is, what is the long-term cost to the Israeli psyche of what’s happening in Gaza?

The irony is not seen. It’s not seen, I think. Very few people, of course, people I know, my friends, some of my friends, Michal Svard, human rights lawyer, he’s a good friend of mine. I interviewed him and he said that he has his family and came from Poland and…of course, experienced the Holocaust, he feels terrible, though he’s very critical of the government, but still to hear that state of Israel that his parents immigrated to because it’s a Jewish homeland and because it’s after the Holocaust and everything, that it is being accused of genocide is like a wound for him.

But I think, unfortunately, I think this is limited. I think people see it as completely biased, this accusation that they are based on antisemitism, that Israel, that they want the whole idea of the South African…process it started in the ICJ is to prevent Israel from defending itself. And this is antisemitism because the Jews have the right to defend themselves and only Jews are being told not to defend themselves. And this is like a Holocaust. So, I don’t think it’s it dives in. What did I you know, I feel that, that has changed because we published an investigation less elaborated because none of it is really documented in the sense of documents, but less elaborated in November. And this, and it was completely ignored in the Israeli press. This time the investigation was covered everywhere in the big media, in the mainstream media, Haaretz but not only Haaretz, it’s Wayanat, Walla, the main websites, news websites. I think there is a difference now that it’s quite a widely spread feeling or understanding that Israel is not…not winning the war or even losing it. And that we are not going to wipe out Hamas, that Hamas is going to stay, and that the military pressure will not bring the hostages alive, maybe vice versa. It is killing the hostages. So, I think here we do see, and that Netanyahu and his government, are rejecting, are blocking any deal for the political purposes and ideological purposes. This, I think, is much widespread than it was three, four months ago when we published our first investigation. And maybe it’s one of the reasons for the fact that this time around, was not ignored, it was published, it was, I wouldn’t say discussed deeply, but it was there. Because after almost 200 days of war, people don’t see any way out. So now they’re talking about Rafah. I think still, the anger is of course there, the trauma is certainly there, the will to see everyone in Gaza as responsible for the attacks of October 7th and there are no innocent people in Gaza. This is a widespread notion in Israel. It is said by even officially but certainly not officials but on tv and  press said regularly that, that there’s  no one is  innocent in Gaza. So, the moral impact what it will do to the Israeli society is a big question that i’m asking myself. Can we heal?

Can we heal from that? Can we, once people will understand more what was done on behalf of us, on our behalf, what it will do to this society? I don’t know, it’s a big question. It goes inside also. We were not, I must say, nothing happened to us, and we were not attacked, not personally, and certainly not physically. But the inside censorship in Israel, preventing demonstrations to end the war, harassing people who demonstrate to end the war. This is something that is widespread and I don’t know if Israel could, not that it was the perfect democracy before, I don’t think it was. Certainly with occupation there’s no democracy, but I wonder if Israel…could return to be a place where you can express your views as a Jew, as a Jew, for Palestinians. It was impossible even before, but for a Jew, it’s a big question. I don’t know. It’s a big question. It’s a big healing. I must say, it’s a process that the Palestinians should go through, you know, around what happened on October 7, the level of brutality, the level of cruelty done by Hamas and not Hamas. It was also civilians who came in and maybe large part of the atrocities were done by civilians. This is one of the assumptions. It’s not really clear, but…They say that most of the rape incidents were probably done by these… civilians who crossed the border afterwards. So, yes, the Palestinian society will also have to reckon with what its members have done on October 7th, but yes, for the Israeli society, because it is slow. But again the fact that it was so detached, what we describe in our investigation. And also the fighting in Gaza, as far as I understand, are not… Most of the fighting is not done, you know, when you see the people that you fight. Usually the Hamas, they come out of the tunnels, you know, they…shoot an RPG, either they succeed to shoot an RPG or not and then this tunnel is attacked. And then I think and many, much of the work is done by the Air Force, by drones, by tanks, by artillery, not a lot of face-to-face fighting. So people don’t even really see, even those who were there, the level, they do see the level of destruction of the buildings. Not the civil. Yes.

How many Israeli soldiers have died so far? Do you know the figure? In actual combat?

600. 600 Israelis were killed. I think out of them, 350 in October 7th and 250 in the ground operation. Since. Which is…I think a number lower than expected, I think. I think when Israel went in with the ground operation, I think people talked about many hundreds of soldiers killed, 250, again, it’s a lot. It’s a whole brigade. I read somebody from the army saying that we lost a whole brigade. it’s not trivial. But, you know, there were 300,000 soldiers around Gaza at the height of the fighting. So…

Conclusion

Last question, Meron. Yes. Do you feel safer now on what day on the 19th of April? In more than six months into this, do you, as an Israeli, feel safer?

No, I feel much… And I think I don’t represent only myself. I think Israel really is… My understanding, my reading is that if we continue, and one of our sources told us, yes, we kill many Hamas people. But what we will do to the next generation? I think that we are going, Israel is going on a very, very dangerous path. The level of destruction in Gaza, the level of killing in Gaza, what it will do to its position, you know, we are surrounded. Hezbollah now, Jordan is 80% Palestinian. Will the regime in Jordan change and we will have a Palestinian state with warplanes and tanks and artillery and a border of 650 kilometres?

What will happen in the West Bank, what will happen in the Shiite militia in Iraq. I think Israel is going in a very, very dangerous path. And I think this, I’m not alone here. Maybe I, being an analyst, I look maybe further away, but I think Israelis…generally speaking, feel less safe than they were certainly on October 6th. And now people feel that we are going into, okay, people hoping we will go into Rafah, that’s quite popular, I think. But will…Even those people who are telling me we should go to Rafah, if you ask them, you think that will make us safe? People feel despaired. They don’t have an answer. They don’t have the answer. We have to speak to them. We have to speak to the Palestinians, negotiate peace settlements, end the occupation. Palestinian, an independent Palestinians state, equal rights. And that’s how…conflicts are being solved.

I don’t think they are there. They are certainly not there. But I think there is really a fear. You know, I went to my barber yesterday and he’s certainly not left wing, I think very right wing. And he asked me how I am and I said, okay, I’m fine. And he told me if we were 10% fine, it would be great. So I think it’s very widespread, the feeling that we are in a bad situation and it’s getting worse, not getting better.

On that sombre note, thank you firstly for the work you’ve done in giving the rest of the world an understanding of how the war has been played out in Gaza and I think what you’ve uncovered, what you’ve helped uncover, I think will echo for decades, for generations. And I think it’s going to play a big part and I really do hope that it’s going to ignite a lot more discussions for militaries around the world about the use of AI technology. Whilst it seems like it’s solving many problems, it neuters our morality so quickly and so efficiently that it allows for killing to occur at a scale that has been rarely seen, certainly in modern history. So firstly, thank you for that. And then of course, thank you for being a voice of reason and to do it from Jerusalem, from a very, and I suspect it’s not, you said you weren’t attacked and so on, but I also don’t expect it to be a very comfortable place for you to be one of the very vocal critics of the Netanyahu government and generally what the IDF is doing. So, thank you for your courage in that regard. And then finally, thank you for giving me so much of your time. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, that’s been an invaluable conversation. Thank you.

Thank you.