A six-source investigation says Israel’s intelligence apparatus marked up to 37,000 Palestinians for possible strikes, then used a second system to find them at home.
Israel’s war machine did not need every Palestinian in Gaza to commit a crime. An algorithm could mark a man as suspect and place his family home inside the kill chain.
A 2024 +972 Magazine and Local Call investigation reported that Lavender generated a list of as many as 37,000 Palestinians classified as suspected Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives. The report cited six Israeli intelligence officers who said they had firsthand involvement with the system.
Those sources said analysts often gave a target about 20 seconds of review, mainly to confirm the person was male. They said the system carried an estimated 10 percent error rate and sometimes flagged people with only loose, or no, militant connection.
The investigation also reported that a second automated system, “Where’s Daddy?,” tracked designated people to family homes. Sources said the military often struck there at night, when relatives were present, because the system could locate the target more easily.
“It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”— Israeli intelligence officer, quoted by +972 Magazine and Local Call
The Guardian independently reported the six-source account and its claims of permissive civilian-casualty rules.
The IDF denied the central characterization in a statement reported by Reuters, saying it does not use AI to identify operatives or predict whether a person is a terrorist. The military said its information systems merely assist analysts, who must conduct independent reviews.
The reported logic is an inversion of justice: suspicion becomes a score, a score becomes a target, and a family home becomes the place to settle it.