A recent investigation by Israeli media confirmed that the occupation has been relying on tech giants’ cloud services to store the enormous amount of newly-collected data from Gaza after October 7, 2023.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is supplying the Israeli regime with “endless cloud storage” while Google and Microsoft offer their AI services to aid the occupation’s military attacks.
The Israeli occupation is world-renowned for being a so-called “start-up nation,” with many tech giants opening offices, staff, and research and development (R&D) units since its branding in the 1960s.
This misguided investment in “innovation” feeds the “classic Zionist modernizing narrative,” which played a fundamental role in the success of its foundation over the dispossession of Palestinians, as anthropologist Rebecca L. Stein noted in Digital Militarism.
These tech corporations and start-ups operate in the Israeli center of “Silicon Wadi,” a spin-off of the famous Silicon Valley in California. It is an area no larger than 6000 square kilometers. Most of its activity falls in the occupied areas of Yaffa and its surroundings (“Tel Aviv”), Haifa, and Jerusalem.
The Israeli tech scene is closely related to the military, especially Unit 8200, the “information gathering unit” under the occupation’s Military Intelligence Directorate.
What is Unit 8200?
Hundreds of tech companies and start-ups were launched by 8200 alumni, including the popular instant messaging app Viber, or Wix, the cloud computing web-development service enterprise.
Unit 8200 is managed similarly to big-tech companies, with recruiters constantly chasing after young hires in universities, schools, and career fairs.
Young Israelis hired in this high-tech “secret” branch of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) often work on high-profile projects that require advanced technical skills, such as coding and programming.
Although the Unit does not disclose much of its operations, it is renowned for hacking and conducting mass surveillance in the occupied Palestinian territories.
As his first task upon joining Unit 8200, Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami recalled hacking into the systems of two “enemy states” in the 1990s. He said he was charged with breaking the encryption in another country’s computers and decrypting the data.
Israeli intelligence soldiers are usually recruited from a very young age. The IOF actively looks for potential recruits in schools, making the average age among unit members between 19 and 22.
In 2000, it was reported that Israeli teenage hackers attempted a jam against Hezbollah and Hamas websites, one of the first documented cases of cyberwarfare.
In 2018, a study by Haaretz showed that 80 percent of the 2,300 people who created 700 Israeli cybersecurity companies were trained in Israeli intelligence agencies.
When 8200 soldiers finish their time in the Unit, they are equipped with the necessary technical skills to join any big tech company, or even start their own, making Israel a notorious hotspot for investment in technology.
The implications on Palestinians are grave, and often, deadly. Technology developed by the Unit is deployed and tested in the occupied West Bank and during the occupation’s wars on Gaza, in what could be called Israel’s “surveillance laboratory.” The Unit and its counterparts have been using the occupied Palestinian territories to “test” their surveillance and AI innovations on Palestinians to refine and sell them later.
Created in 1952, 8200 is a unit in the Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman), responsible for collecting signals intelligence (SIGINT) including communications between people on electronic signals, radio, and mobile phones.
The Unit’s role is not confined to software attacks alone. It is also heavily involved in creating AI models to locate and identify its “enemy” targets. The most infamous AI identifier is its “Gospel,” currently used in the war on Gaza.
The model, developed by Unit 8200, identifies targets based on “probabilistic inference,” when an individual shares the same characteristics as an identified enemy in the datasets they’ve been trained on.
One former Israeli intelligence officer called the Gospel a “mass assassination factory.”
However, this tool remains largely controversial because of its inaccuracy. Like other AI models, Gospel targets people through machine-learning based on previous datasets, making it prone to error and targeting civilians.
This has been demonstrated in multiple instances during the ongoing war on Gaza, wherein Israeli drones have targeted residential buildings and other monuments where Hamas fighters did not exist.
Unit 8200 is the largest unit in the IOF, employing 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers. It is an agency similar to the American National Security Agency (NSA), exposed by Edward Snowden’s leaks to have implemented mass surveillance programs.
Unit 8200 soldiers are often tasked with intercepting signals and decrypting communications, but as the demand for security and surveillance tech grew worldwide, it became necessary for intelligence agencies to rely on their surveillance sectors.
The Unit has been accused of contributing to the Stuxnet computer worm that had infected Iran’s computers and targeted its nuclear servers, setting back their development, although they deny it.
Unit 8200 soldiers have also been criticized for “snooping” on Palestinians, mainly by blackmailing innocent Palestinians with sexual, private, or financial information, among other violations.
Recently, in an embarrassing slip, the chief spy of the Unit’s identity, Yossi Sariel, a heavily guarded secret, was exposed online by the Guardian.
Sariel had published in 2021 a book online with an anonymous email address about the use of AI in military intelligence named “The Human Machine Team,” and the account could easily be linked to his personal address.
A spokesperson for the IOF refuted the claim that Sariel was the author of the book, saying that the email was “dedicated specifically for issues to do with the book itself,” according to the Guardian.
The Unit is also known to have different subunits: Hatzav, Unit 81, and Gedasim. The first is responsible for monitoring Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), which includes all media ranging from TV to social media.
Unit 81 is even more secretive, as it supplies the military with the latest in-house built technologies.
The final unit, the Sigint Operational Regiment or “Gedasim” is the most secretive; its function is to collect real-time intelligence and transmit it to elite military troops.
What exactly makes “Israel” a tech hotspot?
Unit 8200 and other Israeli military intelligence services train recruits for big tech companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Motorola, which have opened offices and research centers long before the 2000s.
High-tech companies then open centers, often in the Silicon Wadi or the Beersheba (Bir Saba’ or بئر السبع), area in the Negev desert where multiple tech companies, such as Amazon and Dell, have opened offices.
Some companies, such as Microsoft, have even gone as far as firing 20,000 employees in the United States to invest and hire in “Israel.”
The Israeli government has also historically supported tech innovation through funding, tax incentives, and incubators.
Governmental initiatives like the Israel Innovation Authority offer grants and assistance to startups, making “Israel” a conducive environment for tech growth.
Because of the high demand for surveillance technology, many of these Tech companies have focused on cybersecurity, selling them to other countries.
The settler colony now boasts the most surveillance firms per capita in the world, with its cyber exports valued at $10 billion.
Some Israeli policies have even merged military intelligence operations with the private tech industry and exported former 8200 soldiers, who still have ties with the military, to big tech companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook where they hold executive positions.
Other renowned companies have also managed to build excellent relationships with the occupation’s military-industrial complex, such as the case of OpenAI
Last year, the CEO of Microsoft-backed OpenAI Sam Altman visited “Tel Aviv” to participate in a talk at Tel Aviv University.
The company, famous for its AI model, ChatGPT, has been accused of indirect bias in favor of Israel.
Although Altman has no direct relationship with Israel’s military, he has repeatedly expressed his willingness to invest in the Israeli occupation. He has provided USD 7 million in funding to an Israeli cybersecurity startup, Apex.
The CEO of Apex is also a former 8200 agent, which he co-founded with a peer he met during his service, highlighting the close relationship between the Israeli military and tech startups in the occupied territories.
The occupation’s “big players”
Pegasus-NSO Spyware
NSO Group Technologies, known for developing the infamous Pegasus spyware was founded by three former soldiers of Unit 8200: Niv, Shalev and Omri (their initials forming the acronym for their company, NSO).
The powerful Pegasus is a no-click malware that can infiltrate phones, harvesting its data and gaining control over its microphone and camera.
Pegasus has been used as a weapon of diplomatic power between Israel and other Arab countries, where countries such as Egypt and Morocco have used it to spy on politicians and activists.
According to research published by 7amleh, almost every member of NSO Group’s research unit had already worked in the Israeli intelligence agencies.
A fact sheet published by Visualizing Palestine revealed that sale of the spyware should be approved by the Israeli government’s Defense Exports Control Agency, which keeps information about export approvals secretive.
Au10tix
Au10tix is an Israeli authentication platform used by multiple companies such as LinkedIn, Uber, TikTok, and X to collect sensitive information on these platforms.
This June, the company had a data breach that leaked personal information such as names, numbers, car plates, and ID numbers.
The active chairperson of Au10tix, Ron Atzmon, was a previous member of Unit 8200 and his father is closely tied to Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Au10tix parent’s company, ICTS International, is also established in several airports where it provides identity checks and collaborates with security agencies.
The Israeli occupation thrives on its tech sector, which generates 20% of its revenue, that it then uses to fund genocidal activities in the occupied territories. Since October 7 2023, tech companies have raised $8 billion, 55% less than the previous year.
The occupation’s tech sector and its growth could not exist without using Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to sell this “battle-tested” technology, making it more “attractive” at export fairs and on the world market.
Photo: Sebastien Bozon/AFP
