Israeli Digital Oppression and Cyber Surveillance in Palestine
In this, the third blog post in our Palestine series, Mais Qandeel shares her contribution to the Surveillance Studies Network 2024 Conference plenary ‘Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine’, also honouring the influence of Elia Zureik (1939–2023). Other contributions in this series come from fellow speakers on the panel: David Lyon, Neve Gordon and Muna Haddad, and Ahmad H. Sa’di.
Whilst we gathered on 31 May 2024, Palestinians, the indigenous people of Palestine, are being subject to an Israeli genocidal war, the deadliest and most destructive in modern history. This is coupled with Israel’s complete ignorance of international law and international legal order, that is unconditionally aided, supported and militarised by some Western powers. For this reason, as the South Africa Agent, in South Africa v. Israel case, put it, “the World should be ashamed, the World should be horrified.” This is an important reminder to make and start with.
Early in his writings, Elia Zureik connected Israeli surveillance of Palestinians as an extended conduct of settler colonialism and neoliberal apartheid, arguing that Israel’s Colonial Project in Palestine shows how central surveillance is to the maintenance of that project. More precisely, in his article in 2020: Settler Colonialism, Neoliberalism and Cyber Surveillance: The Case of Israel, he pointed out that the use of new technologies, especially the use of algorithmic predictions and biometrics, including facial recognition, has transformed Israel to a high-tech surveillance state, spreading fear among and tightening its control over the occupied Palestinian people.
Departing from the notion of “cyber surveillance” in relation to control andsettler colonialism, and building on Elia’s work, I will address three main points in turn. First: The status of Palestinians under Israeli cyber surveillance and digital oppression. Second: The use of AI-enhanced facial recognition systems to track Palestinians, systematizing massive surveillance and automating harsh restrictions to their rights and freedoms as part of a structural settler colonial oppression. Third: The role of social media platforms in facilitating cyber surveillance and digital oppression. I will conclude with a brief examination of the legality of the deployment of these technologies under international law of occupation.
Point 1: The status of Palestinians under Israeli cyber surveillance and digital oppression
The Palestinian people have been living under a structural system of oppression for 3-quarters of a century now, with the increasing use of new technologies and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such oppression has become highly digital. There is no Palestinian Internet infrastructure. Israel, the occupying power in Palestine, has total control over the Palestinian physical and digital space. It has been controlling the ICT infrastructure and retaining control over critical aspects of the ICT sector in order to make it easier to control an entire population and impose structural oppression. Israel has made it impossible for Palestinians to develop an independent network and thereby enjoy a greater safety and flow of information. This is also accompanied with an Israeli illegal campaign of communication blackouts, internet shutdowns and total destruction of basic infrastructure in Gaza.
This control has allowed Israel to conduct mass surveillance of Palestinians, monitor content online and restrict their access to digital rights, specifically the rights to internet security, privacy and freedom of opinion and expression, thus, violating an array of human rights, both in the online and offline worlds. A big number of Palestinians have been subject to blackmail — to become informants — and intimidation, torture, detention on the basis of the collected private and intimate data about them, being homosexual for instance. This trend goes together with the role of Israel as a global leader in cybersecurity and surveillance technologies.
Palestinians are being dehumanised, deprived from their own agency, where Palestine and its digital space are used as a laboratory for experimenting technologies before exporting them to other governments, and oppressive and authoritarian regimes, for example, Pegasus, a spyware developed by the Israeli company NSO Group. This also includes agreements with actors such as the EU. The EU and Israel agreement (2022) that would allow the exchange of Palestinians’ personal and sensitive data such as biometrics, racial and ethnic origin, or religious and political beliefs, which contributes to and deepens the Israeli domination over Palestinians.
Finally, tech companies take a quasi-sovereign role in facilitating digital oppression and building their own empires of control. They also contribute to systematic violation of rights and shrinking of Palestinian cyberspace. The controversial agreement between Google/Amazon and the Israeli military, known as Nimbus Project, to sell dangerous technology that is designed to harm individuals to the Israeli military and government is one example.
Point 2: The use of AI-enhanced Surveillance
The Israeli deployment of AI against Palestinians is extreme and is leading to harmful and deadly outcomes. Israel’s technological, military, and economic supremacy has determined how AI-related technologies are integrated into Palestinian life, subjecting them to a multi-layered system of control and posing threats to their human rights, life, security, and dignity. This technology includes AI-based facial recognition, automated weapons, social media monitoring, and military targeting. The use of AI enhanced systems for mass surveillance against Palestinians in all historical Palestine, such as the Wolf Pack system, surveillance drones and automated weapons is intensifying.
For AI-enhanced surveillance, Israeli military is accelerating the use of facial recognition in the occupied West Bank to track Palestinians and restrict their movement, monitor their lives — an uninterrupted 24/7 watch — and collect their personal and biometric data. A system that has been described by Amnesty International as “automated apartheid”.
In occupied East Jerusalem, Israel is expanding a city-wide surveillance network with a vast facial recognition system known as Mabat 2000. The system allows Israeli authorities to record individuals and keep Palestinians under constant observation, even as they go about their ordinary daily activities. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank are forced to stand in front of fenced checkpoints where cameras scan their faces.
The “Wolf Pack” system is a programme deployed by the Israeli military with the aim of storing a database of profiles of every single Palestinian in the West Bank. There are two facial recognition applications known as the Red Wolf and the Blue Wolf, which are both used. The Red Wolf is a colour-coded system to tell Israeli military whether Palestinians should pass, be interrogated or detained. It has been intensively used in the cities of Hebron and Jerusalem. This is in addition to Israeli-installed cameras and sensors all around the two cities — estimated as located in every 1 or 2 meters — some of which have been directed into the private homes and bedrooms of Palestinian families. A counterpart technology deployed at checkpoints, called the Blue Wolf, is available on smartphones. It was rolled out as part of a broader surveillance policy throughout the whole West Bank. The software’s mobility means that facial recognition technology is expanding way beyond checkpoints and spreading all over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
The Israeli military is increasingly conducting “intelligence mapping” raids where soldiers raid Palestinian homes with no suspicion of any wrongdoing for the purpose of mapping individuals’ facial characteristics, this includes children, elderly, men and women, to include the entire Palestinian population into that system. This raises legal questions under international law, including the power and responsibilities of the occupying power towards the occupied people.
In addition to the Israeli ones, Amnesty International has identified that the used high-resolution CCTV cameras are made by the Chinese company Hikvision and the Dutch company TKH Security. The cameras are installed in public spaces, residential areas and attached to military infrastructure. These models are attached to automated facial recognition technology. In the deployment of such technology, Palestinians are not asked for their consent, they are not aware of how such technology works and on what premises. Palestinians do not have the option of opting out and they are not informed about the collection, use and storage of their personal and biometric data. Some are not even told or don’t know that they are subject to such technology.
Point 3: Social media platforms as a tool of oppression
Social media platforms were seen as a venue for Palestinians to spread their voices and show the Israeli practice that they are subject to. Today, however, these platforms are used as a tool of oppression and a place for surveillance. Palestinians who post their political opinion or share a story on their social media platforms face intensive censorship and control. A post or a like on social media leads individuals to be subject to Israeli arrests and detention, some being subject to torture.
This has particularly intensified since the start of the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza. For example, posting contents critical of the Israeli authorities or expressing support for Palestinian rights, is deemed as a crime Palestinians have been subject to forced phone inspections — if one is having/or not having the application Telegram, for example, this gives a reason to Israeli military to subjugate that person to physical violence against their body — having Telegram means that the person has something to hide and that is suspicious, not having Telegram assumes that the person had deleted the application before passing at a checkpoint. Either way, the assumption of guilt applies.
Social media platforms and communication applications have been serving as a tool to facilitate surveillance and data collection on Palestinians and their activities as well as their communications. It has been reported that some social media companies provide the Israeli authorities with data on locations, communications and digital activities of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, which contributes to a more aggressive level of control and oppression.
At the same time, 7amleh: The Arab Centre for Social Media Advancement reported that there is a spread of racist and rhetoric posts and hate speech directed against Palestinians, where the level of incitement against them in the Hebrew language has been increasing without content moderation, reports show that there has been 10 million such posts only in 2023. In the meantime, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices are being censored by social media platforms with massive shadow-banning, take downs and blocking accounts. For example, using the Palestinian flag or mentioning some words in a post has become something that goes against social media platforms community guidelines.
Today, the Israeli government’s wave of legislations is fostering its oppression of Palestinians and controlling their digital space, including the Facebook Law that allows massive control of social media content and restricts freedom of opinion and expression on social media platforms. The law allows the Israeli authorities — through social media companies — to remove any content online because it is “inciting” or threatening the “state security” or “personal security”, using vague and undefined terms. Another recent law called the Law of Consumption of Terrorist Material that allows a total control of digital activities. A like or share of a post showing Israeli bombardment of civilians in Gaza would lead to detention and imprisonment.
Legality and Concluding Remarks: The Law of Occupation
The law of occupation is clear, although gives some powers to the occupier. The first duty requires that the Occupying Power must protect the local population, here the Palestinians, from a breakdown in security or general safety and must ensure continuance of ordinary administrative, judicial, social and economic functions to resume daily life in the occupied territory. This is in accordance with the Hague Regulations, Article 43, duty to “restore and ensure public order and civil life,” which Israel is obligated to respect.
Additionally, Article 27 of The Fourth Geneva Convention outlines the core humanitarian principle, asserting that protected persons, including civilians in occupied territory, “are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs” and that “they shall at all times be humanely treated, and protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof”.
An Occupying Power, Israel, when seeking to deploy mass surveillance, even if it seeks to protect the security of the local population or as measures of control and security of its own military, creates serious humanitarian consequences and digital risks for the civilian population from the use of AI-enabled surveillance and monitoring and intrusive technologies, including facial recognition, such as being targeted, arrested, facing ill-treatment or suffering from psychological effects from the fear of being under surveillance. Thus, such extensive use cannot be legally justified.
Israeli mass surveillance does not only spread fear and anxiety among Palestinians, but it also violates their privacy and a whole set of human rights, including their right to dignified life. Furthermore, it exceeds the power of the occupier set forth in the law of occupation. Arbitrary arrests, beside violating the right to liberty and freedom, suppress the fundamental rights to privacy, freedom of expression and violate the right to a fair trial and due process, as Palestinians often face prolonged detention without clear charges.
The Israeli laws, which in themselves must not be applied to the occupied territory, have significant effects on Palestinians’ freedoms and reflect the Israeli effort to control the Palestinian digital space, thus, controlling the entire population. All such conduct cannot be seen as falling within the meaning of the law of occupation or the limits and powers of the occupier, but rather as a tool of settler colonialism and oppression, undermining the Palestinians’ inherent right to self-determination.
