"Israeli" forces train AI tool to understand Arabic for enhanced surveillance

Israeli Occupation Forces' (IOF) intelligence has reportedly developed an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system designed to analyze vast amounts of intercepted Palestinian communications.

This AI tool, built using data collected from phone calls and text messages, is being used to monitor dissent and facilitate raids in the occupied West Bank.

A joint investigation by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call revealed that Unit 8200—the IOF’s elite intelligence unit—has been training the AI model to understand spoken Arabic. The system processes intercepted conversations, enabling it to identify potential threats or individuals engaged in opposition to Israeli Occupation policies.

Functioning similarly to chatbot models like ChatGPT, the AI is described as a deep learning system that generates human-like text and provides intelligence reports on individuals under surveillance.

An anonymous "Israeli" intelligence source explained that the initiative aimed to “collect all the [spoken Arabic] text the unit has ever had and put it into a centralized place.”

The lack of extensive Arabic transcripts online posed a challenge in training the model. To overcome this, the AI system was developed using a dataset of approximately 100 billion words in Arabic dialects, including Palestinian and Lebanese.

The investigation found that the AI system plays a key role in IOF operations, particularly in arrest campaigns across the occupied West Bank. When the IOF enters Palestinian villages, the AI flags individuals based on specific words or phrases that could indicate resistance.

One intelligence source stated that the system has significantly expanded the scope of surveillance, saying, “It allows us to act on the information of many more people, and this allows control over the population. When you hold so much information, you can use it for whatever purpose you want.”

Despite the reports, an IOF spokesperson declined to provide detailed answers to the Guardian’s inquiries. They did, however, issue a general statement asserting that the military “deploys various intelligence methods to identify and thwart terrorist activity by hostile organizations in the Middle East.”