Israel targets infrastructure in Gaza to ramp up civilian pressure on Hamas, report claims

Geoff Bennett:

Israel has launched over 22,000 military strikes into Gaza since the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, with a death toll of more than 18,000. That's according to the Gaza Health Ministry. A recent investigative report finds that Israel is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Gaza, with the goal of ramping up civilian pressure on Hamas.

That's one of the many takeaways in reporting by the independent nonpartisan Israeli publication "+972" magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call. It also includes interviews with several current and former sources in Israel's intelligence community.

The lead reporter, investigative journalist Yuval Abraham, joins us now from Jerusalem.

Thank you for being with us.

Your reporting focuses on how the IDF selects military targets and how it determines the number of civilian deaths that are acceptable. What did you find?

Yuval Abraham, “+972”:

The military has this term called collateral damage degrees, which dictates how many civilians it is allowing soldiers to kill per strike.

So even if the civilians are not the targets, the amount that is allowed to be killed is known beforehand. And what I found is that, according to sources in this operation, the military has largely abandoned previous protocols, and now it is allowing soldiers, according to sources, to knowingly kill hundreds, several hundred Palestinian civilians in an attempt to assassinate one senior Hamas member.

Geoff Bennett:

How has that changed post-October 7?

The U.S. military has a similar process, a CDE, a collateral damage estimate. And the laws of war dictate that the military advantage has to be proportionate to the civilian — the impact on civilians, civilian casualties. How does Israel make that assessment, that determination?

Yuval Abraham:

So, in the past, according to sources, for a single assassination attempt, dozens of Palestinian civilians would be allowed to be killed. This has become 10 times or 20 times the number that was allowed in the past after October 7.

Also, with regards to a particular category of targets that are called power targets, that's according to sources, in the past, as you have said in the introduction, were bombed in order to create this civilian pressure on Hamas. So, nine power targets were bombed in 2021. And in this operation, we know that more than 1,000 power targets were already bombed.

So we are seeing a lot of criteria that was already in place in previous operations dramatically changing.

Geoff Bennett:

You also report extensively about the role of artificial intelligence in all of this, that the IDF has an A.I. target creation platform called the Gospel, which has significantly accelerated the identification of military targets.

How does it work and what's the impact on the ground?

Yuval Abraham:

Now, sources have described the Gospel as essentially a target machine. So, while a human is in the loop somewhere, they are spending much less time per target actually analyzing the target.

One source, for example, told me that they were being judged not by the quality of the targets they were creating, but by the quantity of the targets that were being created using these A.I.-powered systems and this process of automation.

The result is that, according to military sources, Israel has bombed really an unprecedented amount of targets in Gaza. And I think we are seeing the results on the ground in Gaza.

Geoff Bennett:

The IDF did not immediately respond to our request for comment. Does the IDF deny or dispute anything in your reporting?

Yuval Abraham:

Not directly.

I mean, we asked a lot of questions, and we didn't get direct, specific responses. The IDF said that it is abiding by international law, that it is doing everything in its power to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Again, according to sources from within the military, from within the intelligence community, this is just not true.

They have spoken about completely disproportionate strikes, knowingly killing hundreds of civilians, a general atmosphere that they felt was partially motivated by revenge for the horrors of October 7. As a matter of fact, one source said that the only thing that he felt was actually limiting the death of civilians in Gaza was international pressure, and specifically U.S. pressure.

Geoff Bennett:

Yuval, give us a sense, without, obviously, revealing your sources, who did you talk to in this reporting? And walk us through the process of how you pieced all of this together.

Yuval Abraham:

Yes, so the investigation is based on conversations I have had with seven sources from Israel's intelligence community.

Some of them are current sources that are still actively taking part in this operation, some of them former sources that have taken part in previous operations. These are whistle-blowers. So, essentially, they're not going to be willing to reveal their identities.

I feel part of the reason why some of them spoke was that they were shocked by some of the things that they were asked to do. One source described how, previously, for example, protocols in the military would say that before, carrying out a strike, you would have to have a very precise pinpointing of where the target is.

After October 7, the source said they were actually carrying out strikes based on a wide approximation, and they bombed a very wide radius, again, knowingly killing civilians. And these are sources that are in the military. They obviously care about the security of Israelis, but they felt that what was going on was unjustifiable in Gaza.

And I think this is part of the reason why they were willing to speak out against it.

Geoff Bennett:

Investigative journalist Yuval Abraham, thank you for sharing your reporting with us.

Yuval Abraham:

Thank you very much.