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on october 7, 2023, a new round of conflict broke out between the palestinian islamic resistance movement (hamas) and israel. over the past year, the conflict has continued to spill over. all parties have used a variety of new tactics and new technologies, such as launching drone attacks, identifying targets through artificial intelligence, and even using communication equipment such as pagers and walkie-talkies as lethal weapons, causing massive casualties.

drones take advantage of asymmetry

on the first day of the conflict, hamas used small drones to fly at low altitudes to avoid israeli detection, destroy israeli observation and communication facilities on the border, and create conditions for hamas armed personnel to break into israel.

sun yongsheng, director of the low altitude safety research center of the people's public security university of china, said that drones have demonstrated low-cost combat advantages in this round of conflicts. some civilian drones can be weaponized by mounting simple bomb-delivery devices and have outstanding strike effects.

hezbollah in lebanon and the houthis in yemen also frequently use drones to harass israeli targets. in june this year, lebanese hezbollah released a nearly 10-minute video shot by a drone. the image showed residential areas and surrounding military facilities in the important israeli port city of haifa, triggering panic in israeli society and exposing the israeli military's drone interception. weaknesses. in july this year, a large long-range drone of the houthi armed forces attacked tel aviv, israel's largest city, killing one person and injuring 10 others. the israeli military said the drone was identified but that its air defense system failed to intercept it due to "human error."

analysts pointed out that although israel has advantages in intelligence, reconnaissance and other technical fields, it has shortcomings in dealing with drone attacks. the high cost of intercepting drones has also become a problem for israel and its allies.

in april this year, iran launched a large number of drones and missiles into israel in retaliation for the attack on the country's embassy in syria. according to israeli media reports, the total cost of the israeli military's interception was as high as 1.35 billion u.s. dollars. william laplante, the u.s. undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, also stated in may this year that it is obviously not cost-effective to use a missile worth $3 million to shoot down a single-range drone worth $50,000.

communication equipment becomes a lethal weapon

since the outbreak of this round of conflict, the israeli army and lebanese hezbollah have continued to attack each other. in september this year, bombings of communication equipment such as pagers and walkie-talkies occurred in many places in lebanon, killing at least 37 people and injuring thousands. the targets were obviously members of the lebanese hezbollah. u.s. media quoted multiple anonymous u.s. officials as saying that israel was the mastermind behind the lebanese communications equipment explosion.

there are conflicting accounts of how the pager was detonated. one theory is that explosive devices were embedded in the communications equipment during the manufacturing process. lebanese cyber security expert hadi khouri said in an interview with lebanese media that the possibility of "malicious interference in the supply chain" of these pagers cannot be ruled out. "from factory assembly to shipment to lebanon, every stage may be hacked." . there are also claims that the controller caused the device battery to overheat and explode through cyber attacks.

some analysts are worried that the communication equipment explosion has opened a "pandora's box" of using transnational supply chain products as weapons, which will bring huge panic to the public.

yannick weyer-lepage, an assistant professor at the royal military college of canada, pointed out that there is a precedent for the weaponization of communication tools. in 1996, hamas bomb-making expert yahya ayyash died after a tampered mobile phone exploded. what was different about the explosion in lebanon was its large scale, involving thousands of communication tools.

the us bloomberg news reported that the lebanese communications equipment explosion marked a "deadly escalation" in the use of supply chains to attack opponents. the washington post published an article stating that the explosion may cause security agencies in various countries to reassess potential threats, which may bring new instability to transnational supply chains.

artificial intelligence battlefield "tests the waters"

according to media reports, the israeli army has used artificial intelligence systems such as "lavender" and "gospel" to identify people and building targets during military operations in the gaza strip. the british "guardian" reported that in the early stages of this round of conflict, the israeli army used the "lavender" system to collect and analyze visual information, network data, photos, etc., and marked approximately 37,000 palestinians as members of armed organizations.

some military analysts pointed out that in order to reduce costs, israel usually uses unguided bombs to attack these targets. this kind of bomb can deviate from the target by up to 30 meters and easily cause a large number of civilian casualties. the palestinian human rights organization "witness" said that the israeli army quickly collected a large amount of information through artificial intelligence technology, thereby increasing and expanding the frequency and scope of air strikes on gaza, which made it possible for the israeli army to carry out "genocide".

analysts point out that the recognition capabilities of artificial intelligence systems are not absolutely accurate. ahmed saadi, a visiting researcher at the university of duisberg-essen in germany, said that the gaza conflict has become a "test" for the use of artificial intelligence on the battlefield, but artificial intelligence can cause misidentification and cause huge harm to civilians.

the u.s. website vox quoted israeli media reports as saying that israeli military personnel said that they sometimes only have 20 seconds to "review" attack targets "recommended" by artificial intelligence before deciding to launch an attack, and that senior military officials encouraged "automatic approval" of artificial intelligence systems. the kill list provided "even though they knew that the system had an error probability of about 10%."

elke schwartz, a professor at queen mary university of london in the united kingdom, said that the new round of palestinian-israeli conflict shows that new technologies are dominating mankind to some extent. “autonomous war is no longer a vision of the future. it has already arrived, and the consequences it’s scary”.

xinhua news agency reporter liu weijian lin yan

(source: xinhua news agency)

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