Israeli Clearing Operations & AI Weapons Stack [FIRE FACTORY]
A terrifying land, sea, sky AI arsenal to be deployed as ground operations escalate. LANIUS drone swarms could turn new page in the book of urban conflict.
Israeli media and OSINT analysts are reporting troops are expected to enter Gaza City soon. The Palestinian militants who have had years to prepare are likely to fight street by street, launching ambushes from a vast network of tunnels.
The Israeli military said late Sunday that it had cut off northern Gaza from the south, calling it a “significant stage” in the war.
On Monday, it said that aircraft struck 450 targets overnight and ground troops took over a Hamas compound.
A one-way corridor for residents to flee south remains available, according to the military, for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who remain in Gaza City and other parts of the north.
Some 1.5 million Palestinians, or around 70% of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes since the war began.
Food, medicine, fuel and water are running low, and U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters are beyond capacity, with many sleeping on the streets outside.
Mobile phone and internet service went down overnight, the third territory-wide outage since the start of the war, but was gradually restored, according to the Palestinian telecom company Paltel and internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht said the IDF is slowly closing in on Gaza City. The IDF Air Force and Navy struck over 450 targets in the previous 24 hours, including Hamas military compounds, observation posts, and firing positions. The IDF said that it seized a Hamas position used for various military operations.Additionally, the IDF published footage on November 6 of its effort to transport ammunition, medical equipment, food, and advanced weapons to support fighting in Gaza.
Hamas militants attacked IDF forces advancing inland from the northwest Gaza Strip coast. The al Qassem Brigades—the militant wing of Hamas—claimed that it fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF tank and engaged the IDF with small arms in the Sultan neighborhood south of Beit Lahiya. Commercially available satellite imagery captured on November 6 shows flattened terrain in the area between Sultan and al Toam Roads, which indicates that Israeli tanks or bulldozers operated in the Sultan neighborhood south of Beit Lahiya. Palestinian militias claimed that they engaged IDF forces further south operating in or around the al Shati Refugee Camp on November 6. Gazan residents said on November 6 that Israeli airstrikes hit close to the al Shati camp The al Qassem Brigades claimed that it destroyed four IDF vehicles on the outskirts of the camp, and 27 military vehicles in the last 48 hours. The al Quds Brigades —the militant wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)—claimed that it destroyed an IDF vehicle near al Maqousi with a bomb stuck to the vehicle. Other insurgent groups in the region used “sticky bombs” to assassinate targets inside vehicles.
Israel commands the most powerful and highest-tech military in the Middle East. Months before the horrific Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, the IDF announced that it was embedding AI into lethal operations. As Bloomberg reported earlier this year, the IDF had begun “using artificial intelligence to select targets for air strikes and organize wartime logistics.”
Israeli officials said at the time that the IDF employed an AI recommendation models for aerial bombardment targets and raids in a system called Fire Factory. According to Bloomberg, it “uses data about military-approved targets to calculate munition loads, prioritize and assign thousands of targets to aircraft and drones, and propose a schedule.”
Israel’s use of AI-enhanced weaponry raises ethical questions about how the technology can help facilitate violence, surveillance and further Palestinian dispossession by reducing Israel’s human cost of conducting warfare. But AI’s impact on human rights is not limited to Palestinians: Israel is one of the world’s largest weapons exporters and Israeli spyware has been used by other oppressive regimes to monitor dissidents. Israel is also invested in developing lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), and has already exported lethal UAVs to Chile, China, India, South Korea, and Turkey.
As more of these technologies have been and will be dissected by InfiniteEyes, the focus today is on what is being deployed in Gaza. Israeli bombing operations have begun deconstructing tunnel networks and eliminated multiple key strategic & problematic locations to curate the coming urban battlefield with soldier preservation in mind. Israel’s AI weapons’ arsenal is some of the most advanced in the world, and among the most advanced to deployed in Gaza is its Lanius drone system.
From Israel’s Elbit, LANIUS is an autonomous combat solution. “It is a highly maneuverable and versatile drone-based loitering munition designed for short-range operation in the urban environment. The system can autonomously scout and map buildings and points of interest for possible threats, detecting, classifying and syncing to Elbit Systems’ Legion-X solutions. LANIUS can carry lethal or non-lethal payloads, capable of performing a broad spectrum of mission profiles for special forces, military and law enforcement”
Operated through a human operator, is able to integrate into a swarm of other LANIUS drones, mapping multiple locations and eliminating multiple targets at once.
DAILYMAIL dissects the more widely known AI weapons in Israel’s arsenal:
Rotem
Light enough to be carried in a backpack, but strong enough to punch through two feet of armour plating; the Rotem suicide drone is a formidable threat in urban warfare.
The Rotem, also designed by IAI, is operated in the same way as a commercial quadcopter drone.
The operator can see from the drone's perspective via a tablet and use an onboard array of sensors to find targets.
Light enough to be carried in a backpack, but strong enough to punch through two feet of armour plating; the Rotem suicide drone is a formidable threat in urban warfare
The Rotem, also designed by IAI, is operated in the same way as a commercial quadcopter drone
Able to manoeuvre in tight spaces and equipped with automated obstacle avoidance, Rotem has been tailored to the IDF's requirements for precision urban combat.
The drone is also able to return safely if not detonated, a vital feature for a piece of kit costing tens of thousands of dollars.
Much like other drones used by the IDF, the Rotem is also a loitering suicide munition.
The drone can 'perch and stare', automatically landing on buildings or hills and waiting to ambush targets.
According to the drone's product page, the drone 'autonomously detects and locates enemy hostile fire sources like artillery, rockets, and missiles launchers, then investigates and engages a direct attack.'
It is not specified how much human control is involved in this process though it likely is a human-in-the-loop system.
Rex MKII
Designed to 'keep troops out of harm's way' the Rex MKII is one of the most advanced autonomous combat robots in the world.
Equipped to be both a transport or reconnaissance vehicle and a weapons platform, this hybrid vehicle can operate silently for up to 43 miles (70km) and up to 248 miles (400km) using its onboard generator.
Controlled by IAI's proprietary AI Machine Learning software, the Rex completes tasks with complete autonomy.
Armed with heavy machine guns of cannons the Rex MKII is Israel's most advanced autonomous vehicle and is capable of identifying and targeting hostiles by itself
It can be loaded with weapons including a 7.62mm machine gun, 50 calibre heavy machine gun, or 30mm cannon.
According to IAI, the onboard technology uses 'sensor-to-shooter loops' to select targets autonomously in real-time.
However, a human soldier is required to press the trigger and authorise firing on targets.
RoBattle
RoBattle forms part of a series of robotic and semi-autonomous weapons being rolled out by the IDF on the Israel-Gaza border.
Weighing seven tons and about the size of a small car, the RoBattle is designed to perform tasks that otherwise would be carried out by human soldiers.
Israeli army reveal unmanned killer robot tank
Part of the IDF's growing robotic arsenal, RoBattle is meant to take on dangerous tasks that would have otherwise been assigned to human soldiers
For maximum flexibility, it can be equipped with a range of different payloads including sensors and radars, manipulator arms, or remotely controlled weapons.
Weaponised versions of the robot use the Pitbull remote weapons systems designed by Israeli weapons developer General Robotics.
According to IAI, the RoBattle autonomously performs 'Advance Guard, ambushes, acts as a decoy, convoy & force protection, combat Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition & Reconnaissance (ISTAR), and advance attack capabilities.'
Sensors combined with onboard AI allow the robot to respond to threats around it, although it is not clear how much human authorisation is required for the use of lethal force.
Protector
The first unmanned surface vessel developed for the Israeli Navy, the Protector is a highly independent remote control vehicle.
The protector has been in service since 2014 as part of patrols along Israel's coast, although it has mainly been used by the Republic of Singapore Navy in anti-piracy missions.
The Protector is an unmanned surface vessel capable of firing small arms and even missiles without risking the lives of any human crew
The Protector is a rigid inflatable boat capable of cruising at 55 miles/hour (88km/h).
Equipped with both a water cannon for non-lethal use and remote-controlled weapons systems, this robot can be deployed in several different roles.
Initially only armed with small weapons, the Protector has also test-fired missiles in trials.
However, the Israeli Navy has now terminated the programme to use unmanned surface vessels.
Guardium
The Guardium is one of the few robotic weapons that is directly developed by the IDF for their use in conflict with Gaza.
Since 2008, this semi-autonomous scout vehicle has been patrolling Gaza's border fence as part of anti-terror and anti-smuggling operations.
While not equipped with any weaponry, the Guardium is a vital source of surveillance for Israeli forces.
The Guardium was designed specifically to patrol the Gaza border and uses a 360-degree camera and loudspeaker to search for potential terrorist threats
With 360-degree cameras and a loudspeaker, this highly mobile vehicle can hit 50 miles/hour (80km/h) and operate for days at a time without a recharge.
The Guardium can be either controlled remotely or operate autonomously for long periods.
According to the IDF, the vehicle is operated with joysticks, gear pedals, a steering wheel, and monitors which broadcast a live feed from the field
The IDF also notes that all Guardium drivers are women.
Lt. Avidav, head of the Guardium Division, wrote in an IDF blog post: 'Applicants must be able to focus intensively since the job demands being glued to a screen without interruption for six hour shifts.'
Spike Firefly
The Spike Firefly is the very latest in the IDF's arsenal of remote weapons, having been first used in combat earlier this year.
About the size of a carton of milk and weighing only 6.6lbs (3kg), the Spike Firefly is a suicide drone designed specifically for use in dense urban environments like Gaza.
The weapon is placed on its end, armed, and then piloted by a soldier using a tablet.
The Spike Firefly has been designed for urban warfare, carrying only 30g of explosives it can fly into buildings or windows to take out threats that would otherwise be hidden from site
With a flight range of about 15 minutes, the drone is designed to bring small amounts of explosives to enemy combatants otherwise hidden out of sight.
IDF soldiers flew six of these drones into houses around the Jenin refugee camp to destroy terrorist targets including a command centre that housed dozens of explosive charges.
Crucially, the IDF claims that no Palestinian civilians were killed during the operation.
In 2017, the IDF’s editorial arm proclaimed that “The IDF Sees Artificial Intelligence as the Key to Modern-Day Survival.” In 2018, the IDF boasted that its “machines are outsmarting humans.” In that article, the then-head of Sigma, the branch of the IDF dedicated to researching, developing, and implementing AI, Lt. Col. Nurit Cohen Inger wrote, “Every camera, every tank, and every soldier produces information on a regular basis, seven days a week, 24 hours a day.”
Stay tuned for more updates of the Israel-Hamas war in the areas of cyberwarfare and AI.