Meta…Israel’s partner in the genocidal war in Gaza

To be present in Gaza, means that you may be martyred or injured at any moment as a result of the ongoing genocidal war waged by the Israeli occupation, and this possibility doubles if you have an account on the social networking application (WhatsApp).

By using WhatsApp, you become a target that the occupation carefully pursues based on the data of the WhatsApp groups that you are a member in, as the Meta company, which owns the application, provides your data to the occupation army to feed the Israeli artificial intelligence system “Lavender” which the occupation uses to kill Palestinians in Gaza Strip.

American software engineer and entrepreneur Paul Biggar, founder of the “Technology for Palestine” initiative, stated in an article he published on his blog on Google Blogger that there is an important detail that is not discussed when talking about the Lavender System, which is that Israel, and during the massacre it is committing in Gaza, kills people on the basis of their presence in the same WhatsApp group that includes anyone it considers a target, and deliberately targets them when they are with their families in their homes.

“Meta is complicit in this in violation of international humanitarian law and of its obligations towards human rights which raises many questions about the claims of privacy and private encryption that Meta claims is available in the private messaging service in the WhatsApp application.

The Israeli media outlets “+927 Magazine” and “Local Call” revealed earlier this month that the Lavender system is analysing information collected about most of the 2.4 million residents of Gaza through a mass surveillance system, and that it has registered about 37 thousand Palestinians and their homes in Gaza as potential targets during the first weeks of the war.

Meanwhile, the British newspaper “The Guardian” quoted Israeli intelligence sources as saying that “Lavender,” which was developed by Unit 8200 in the elite intelligence department of the occupation army, helped kill large numbers of Palestinians.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres expressed his deep concern about reports that the bombing campaign launched by the Israeli army includes artificial intelligence as a tool for identifying targets, especially in densely populated residential areas, which has led to a high level of civilian casualties.

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called for an investigation at various local and international levels into the involvement of major technology companies and global social media companies in causing the death of Palestinian civilians in the war of extermination that has been waged by the Israeli occupation against Gaza Strip since last October 7.

Najla Khoury