Israeli strikes deliberately targeted Gaza homes at night, with families present, reveals report

livemint.com:

Gaza. An investigative report published by +972 Magazine and Local Call, citing six Israeli intelligence officials, has made the shocking revelations.

The investigative report noted that the Israeli Defense Forces would intentionally conduct airstrikes in Gaza at night, in order to have the entire family at home, under one roof. this means, women and children were also unwittingly dragged into the war waged by Israel against Hamas fighters.

“The result is that thousands of Palestinians — most of them women and children or people who were not involved in the fighting — were wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, especially during the first weeks of the war, because of the AI program’s decisions," it wrote. The investigative report said that when alleged junior Hamas militants were targeted, “the army preferred" to use so-called dumb bombs – unguided missiles which can cause large-scale damage.

According to the report, the IDF officials said that the AI-based tool used to identify targets in Gaza, was called “Lavender" and was known to have a 10% error rate. However, one IDF official told +972 “that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp" for the machine’s decisions" and typically devoted only around 20 seconds to each target – ensuring they are male – before authorizing a bombing.

The investigation comes at a time, when Israel has been increasingly scrutinised for probable war crimes, since it started air strikes on the densel;y populated Gaza strip. Israel’s siege of Gaza has killed more than 32,916 people, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, and has led to a spiralling humanitarian crisis where nearly three-quarters of the population in northern Gaza are suffering from catastrophic levels of hunger,