'Apartheid automation': how Israel uses AI to watch Palestinians

From satellite scans that flag Palestinian homes for demolition to facial recognition at military checkpoints, Israel’s growing use of artificial intelligence is raising alarm over how automated technology is being used to control Palestinian lives, Anadolu reported, as published by The Express Tribune.

“It’s all apartheid automation,” said Mustafa Jarrar, professor of AI at Hamad Bin Khalifa University and director of SinaLab. “What is new now is that the AI is not only collecting and analysing, but also can make orders.”

“The pattern of behaviour, the movement, the people you speak to, it’s all monitored and going to one purpose: to aid the Israeli occupation in dominating and controlling this population,” said Jalal Abukhater, policy manager at the Palestinian digital rights group 7amleh.

Watching the land

An AI tool called ImiSight compares satellite images to spot changes to buildings and land, helping Israeli authorities find structures they consider unauthorised, according to an Al Jazeera report. First used in the Naqab desert, where Palestinian Bedouin citizens of Israel face demolitions, it has reportedly been introduced in the occupied West Bank.

• Scale: ImiSight helped survey about 10,735 square kilometres in 2024, and about 495 enforcement proceedings followed, Israeli media reported, citing the Israel Land Authority
• Demolitions: more than 1,100 structures were demolished across the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, in 2026 by September, displacing more than 1,500 Palestinians, according to OCHA
• A rising trend: the yearly average of demolitions in Area C over building permits rose about 80 percent, from 537 in 2010-2022 to 966 in 2023-2025

Abukhater estimated that demolitions had doubled since these AI-supported systems were introduced. “These entire systems are designed in a way to entrench the occupation,” he said.

Watching people

Amnesty International documented in 2023 the Red Wolf facial recognition system at military checkpoints in Hebron, which scans Palestinians’ faces without consent to decide whether they can pass, along with the Blue Wolf phone app and Wolf Pack database.

Abukhater said soldiers photograph Palestinians at checkpoints and during night raids on homes, including children. “The soldiers have targets, and they are told that you should photograph 100 Palestinians a day,” he said, describing the system as “a big prison”.

Targeting in Gaza

A 2024 investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call, based on six Israeli intelligence officers, reported that an AI system called Lavender marked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as potential bombing targets early in the war. One source said staff acted as a “rubber stamp”, sometimes spending about “20 seconds” on a target before approving a strike. “It’s all fully automated,” Jarrar said. “Machine killing, basically.”

In 2025, Microsoft said a review found evidence supporting reports that an Israeli military intelligence unit used its Azure cloud to store recordings of Palestinian phone calls, and disabled some services, saying its terms ban mass surveillance of civilians.

Why it matters

These systems turn the occupation into a machine that watches, sorts and targets Palestinians at scale. Jarrar warned that Israel is “pushing and encouraging other countries to do the same”, which should worry governments far beyond the region. Read our report on settler attacks on Palestinian olive pickers.

This article draws on reporting by The Express Tribune and Anadolu.