UN expert flags possible illegality of attacks after report on AI use in Gaza war. UPDATE: Spanish NGO working with WCK stops using sea route to Gaza

Ben Saul, UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, said if details in a report on AI-assisted targeting in Gaza prove to be true, “many Israeli strikes in Gaza would constitute the war crimes of launching disproportionate attacks”.

Saul was responding to a report in +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language media outlet Local Call, which revealed that the Israeli army has identified tens of thousands of Gaza Palestinians as potential targets using an AI-assisted targeting system called “Lavender”.

If true, many Israeli strikes in Gaza would constitute the war crimes of launching disproportionate attacks: “the army decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians” https://t.co/8JTgG4JVeQ

— Prof Ben Saul – UN SR Human Rights & Counterterror (@profbensaul) April 3, 2024

At least 33,037 Palestinians have been killed and 75,668 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, its Health Ministry says.

Some 62 Palestinians were killed and 91 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.

Source: Al Jazeera

UPDATE

Spanish NGO working with WCK stops using sea route to Gaza

NGO Open Arms said it and US charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) are suspending attempts to get aid to Gaza via sea after seven WCK workers were killed in an Israeli air raid on Monday.

The two charities had worked together in launching a maritime corridor of humanitarian aid to Gaza from Cyprus in March and had just completed unloading about a third of the shipped cargo when the convoy of WCK workers was attacked on April 1.
“This attack, perpetrated by the [Israeli military] last Monday, marks a painful turning point in our efforts to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Open Arms said in a written statement.

“With the arrival yesterday of the Open Arms ship in Larnaca, Cyprus, the mission in alliance with WCK in the humanitarian corridor to the Gaza Strip is suspended,” Open Arms said.

It quoted Open Arms director Oscar Camps calling Gaza a “dystopian laboratory where people’s blood flows while war technologies are tested and perfected, directed by increasingly automated algorithms that allow all human responsibility to be diluted, using technology and trivializing evil.”
“Now states are rushing to extend their condolences to the families, but they are not showing the same rush to stop the shipment of weapons to this laboratory of destruction,” Camps said.
“How much more humanity must be lost in this genocide?”

Source: Al Jazeera

Saul was responding to a report in +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language media outlet Local Call, which revealed that the Israeli army has identified tens of thousands of Gaza Palestinians as potential targets using an AI-assisted targeting system called “Lavender”.

NGO Open Arms said it and US charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) are suspending attempts to get aid to Gaza via sea after seven WCK workers were killed in an Israeli air raid on Monday.

It quoted Open Arms director Oscar Camps calling Gaza a “dystopian laboratory where people’s blood flows while war technologies are tested and perfected, directed by increasingly automated algorithms that allow all human responsibility to be diluted, using technology and trivializing evil.”

“Now states are rushing to extend their condolences to the families, but they are not showing the same rush to stop the shipment of weapons to this laboratory of destruction,” Camps said.

“How much more humanity must be lost in this genocide?”