VIX on the way up!
- Thread starter Silver Soul
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WhatsApp - a tool for Israel to track Hamas?Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed after Israeli intelligence installed spyware on his cell phone through a WhatsApp message to track his whereabouts that was used to launch a missile strike, Lebanese journalist Elia Manier has claimed. Numerous reports have repeatedly suggested that the use of WhatsApp messenger to detect Hamas operatives has been a common practice for the Israeli military.
The Palestinian digital rights group Sada Social earlier demanded a probe into the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) alleged use of WhatsApp user data to target Hamas “suspects” in the Gaza Strip with the help of the Israeli AI-aided system, Lavender. Both Meta (the owners of the popular messaging service) and the IDF deny the allegations.
“The Lavender system, supported by AI, identifies Palestinians by tracking their communications via WhatsApp or the groups they join,” Sada Social pointed out.
The +972 website’s investigative journalist Yuval Abraham, in turn, previously argued that Lavender puts ordinary Palestinians “on a kill list and generate targets for assassination."
“Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the [Hamas-Israel] war," which started October 7, 2023, according to Abraham.
Notably, "It was known in advance that 10% of the human targets slated for assassination were not members of the Hamas military wing at all," he added.
On the whole, Lavender “marked some 37,000 Palestinians as suspected ‘Hamas militants,’ most of them of junior [rank]” for killing, per Abraham.
Bahraini rights activist Esra’a Al Shafei has meanwhile stressed that Meta must “fully investigate” how WhatsApp’s metadata may be used “to track, harm, or kill its users throughout Palestine.”
Former military intelligence and CIA operations officer Philip Giraldi earlier told Sputnik that Israel had invested a lot of money in various electronic tracking techniques like Lavender that enable it to locate and attack targets.
