Lavender and "Where's Daddy?": the AI targeting machine behind NAZA

Lavender

In April 2024, +972 Magazine and Local Call published an investigation by Yuval Abraham, based on six Israeli intelligence officers. It reported that an AI system called Lavender had marked about 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza as suspected militants, and that officers often spent around 20 seconds checking each name before approving it.

The system was known to be wrong in about one case in ten.

"Where's Daddy?"

A second system, nicknamed "Where's Daddy?", tracked marked men and alerted officers when they entered their family homes. According to the investigation, the army preferred to strike them there, at night, with their families inside. For low-ranking suspects it often used unguided "dumb" bombs, which can bring down an entire building.

The permitted toll

The officers said they were allowed to kill 15 to 20 civilians for each low-ranking suspect, and more than 100 for a senior commander. A separate system, the Gospel, generated building targets at a pace one former officer compared to a "mass assassination factory".

What NAZA adds

Two years later, NAZA brings 24 intelligence officers in front of a camera. One of its chapters is titled "Where's Daddy?". They describe watching families for days before strikes were approved, and describe the work as "like a video game".

Watch NAZA

NAZA is Israeli military slang for collateral damage: the number of civilians an officer is allowed to kill in a strike. In this documentary, 24 Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers, many from the army's most prestigious units, explain how that number was set, approved and exceeded in Gaza. What they describe is not a tragic accident of war but a system: targets tracked to their family homes, families watched for days, strikes approved knowing children were inside.

In cinemas now, and free worldwide on theguardian.com after the cinema run.