The IDF assault on Nasser hospital in Southern Gaza joined a long and growing list of bloody infamies committed by Israel since Oct 7, 2023. During a Democracy Now interview, broadcast on Feb 15, 2024, Dr. Khaled Al Serr, who was later kidnapped by the IDF, described what he saw:
“Actually, the situation here in the hospital at this moment is in chaos. All of the patients, all the relatives, refugees and also the medical staff are afraid because of what happened. We could not imagine that at any time the Israeli army will bomb the hospital directly, and they will kill patients and medical personnel directly by bombing the hospital building. Yesterday also, Israeli snipers and Israeli quadcopters, which is a drone, carry on it an AR, and with a sniper, they shot all over the building. And they shot my colleague, Dr. Karam. He has a shrapnel inside his head. I can upload for you a CT for him. You can see, alhamdulillah, it was superficial, nothing serious. But a lot of bullets inside their bedroom and the restroom.”
The Israeli military is using quadcopters, armed with sniper rifles, as part of its assassination arsenal. These remote operated drones, which possess limited but still important automatic capabilities (flight stability, targeting persistence) are being used in the genocidal war in Gaza and the war between Russia and Ukraine to name two, prominent examples. They are likely to make an appearance near you in some form, soon enough.
I haven’t seen reporting on the type of quadcopter used but it’s probably the Smash Dragon, a model produced by the Israeli firm Smart Shooter which, on its website, describes its mission:
SMARTSHOOTER develops state-of-the-art Fire Control Systems for small arms that significantly increase weapon accuracy and lethality when engaging static and moving targets, on the ground and in the air, day and night.
Here is a promotional video for the Smash Dragon:
Smart Shooter’s product, and profit source are the application of computation to the tasks of increasing accuracy and automating weapon firing. One of their ‘solutions’ (solving, apparently, the ‘problem’ of people being alive) is a fixed position ‘weapon station’ called the Smash Hopper that enables a distant operator to target-lock the weapon on a person, initiating the firing of a constant stream of bullets. For some reason, the cartoonish word, ‘smash’ is popular with the Smart Shooter marketing team.
‘AI’, as used under the current global order, serves three primary purposes: control via sorting, anti-labor propaganda and obscuring culpability. Whenever a hospital deploys an algorithmic system, rather than healthcare worker judgment, to decide how long patients stay, sorting is being used as a means of control, for profit. Whenever a tech CEO tells you that ‘AI’ can replace artists, drivers, filmmakers, etc. the idea of artificial intelligence is employed as an anti-labor propaganda tool. And whenever someone tells you that the ‘AI’ has decided, well, anything, they are trying to hide the responsibility of the people behind the scenes, pushing algorithmic systems on the world.
The armed quadcopter brings all of these purposes together, wrapped in a blood stained ribbon. Who lives and who dies is decided via remote control while the fingers pulling the trigger, and the people directing them are hidden from view. These systems are marketed as using ‘AI’ implying machines are making life and death decisions rather than people.
In the introduction to his 2023 book, The Palestine Laboratory, which details Israel’s role in the global arms trade and use of the Palestinians as lethal examples, journalist Anthony Lowenstein describes a weapons demonstration video attended by Andrew Feinstein in 2009:
“Israel is admired as a nation that stands on its own and is unashamed in using extreme force to maintain it. [Andrew Feinstein is] a former South African politician. journalist, and author. He told me about attending the Paris Air Show in 2009, the world’s largest aerospace industry and air show exhibitions. [The Israel-based defense firm Elbit Systems] was showing a promotional video about killer drones, which have been used in Israel’s war against Gaza and over the West Bank.
The footage had been filmed a few months before and showed the reconnaissance of Palestinians in the occupied territories. A target was assassinated. […] Months later, Feinstein investigated the drone strike and discovered that the incident featured in the video had killed a number of innocent Palestinians, including children. This salient fact wasn’t featured at the Paris Air Show. “This was my introduction to the Israeli arms industry and the way it markets itself.”
The armed quadcopter drone, one of the fruits of an industry built on occupation and death, can be added to the long list of the harms of computation. ‘Keep watching the skies!’ someone said at the end of a 1950s science fiction film whose name escapes me. Never mind though, the advice stands.
References
Democracy Now Interview with Dr. Khaled Al Serr
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/15/nasser_hospital_stormed_gaza
Dr. Al Serr kidnapped
The Palestine Laboratory
Computational Impacts 