Armed with artificial intelligence and innovative programs, workers in Israel’s highly dynamic technology industry are working to find traces of hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack.
From a “command room” located in Tel Aviv (west), some of these brilliant minds coordinate dozens of others. With the aim of answering a series of questions: who are the hostages? Where was the last place they were seen? Were they injured? Is it possible to have information about its location?
Israeli authorities have identified some 220 hostages, Israelis, dual nationals and foreigners. They are being held in Gaza, where they were forcibly taken by commandos from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7.
Pillar of the Israeli economy
The technology sector is a pillar of the Israeli economy and benefits from the experience of companies specialized in cybersecurity. An expertise that everyone noticed when the Pegasus spyware scandal of the Israeli company NSO broke out.
The experts gathered at the facilities of the communications company Gitma BDO committed to using these skills in the identification and search for hostages. This comes just days after the unprecedented attack by Hamas fighters on Israeli soil, which killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Other similar platforms have been created, which have volunteers and technology experts.
unique work
At first glance, the sight of young, modern-looking technicians drinking coffee while typing on their computers is not much different from the facilities of a new company such as those found in San Francisco or London. But the work here is unique.
They browse social networks, they see images of the attack, of the kidnappings. They are then analyzed using artificial intelligence and facial recognition software, and compared to photographs provided by the families of hostages or missing people.
With the help of geolocation experts, programmers and Arabic speakers, this work quickly provided authorities with a more accurate map of who was kidnapped and their last appearance. The information is transmitted to the cell created by the army regarding the hostage crisis.
Family pain
According to Refael Franco, Gitma BDO volunteers identified around sixty hostages. “We are a civilian command room. Our main goal is to save lives,” explains the CEO of Code Blue, a crisis management company that helped create the Gitam BDO team.
On the screens, digital maps of the Gaza Strip are dotted with colored markers referencing specific facts about the hostages.
“People here have left their jobs. The CEOs, the heads of the IT departments of the companies, the founders of the companies, they left everything to come here and help,” says Ido Brosh, 24, Gitam BBDO programmer who claims to have experience. in military intelligence.
The trauma of the attacks, to which Israel responds with attacks in the Gaza Strip that have left more than 7,000 dead according to Hamas, mostly civilians, is reinforced by the pain and anguish of the families of the hostages that are moving. deeply to the community. Israeli company.
“We have to bring her back.”
Tsili Wenkert is “living a nightmare.” “It is very hard for a grandmother my age to know that her grandson is captive,” said the 82-year-old woman. Omer Weknert, 22, was one of the hundreds of young people who went to party in the desert, at the Nova rave party, very close to the Gaza Strip.
Tsili Wenkert knows that he is not among the 270 killed there, according to Israeli authorities: he appears in the images published by Hamas on its Telegram channel. In his underwear, he was identified tied up in the back of a truck full of ecstatic gunmen on the way back to Gaza.
Only four hostages, an American woman and her daughter and two women in their 80s, have been released so far, following Egyptian-Qatari mediation. One of them, Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, explained that she had been held in an “expanding network” of tunnels under Gaza.
In Gitma BDO, homework sometimes takes a personal turn. Content creator Omri Marcus shows a photo of her best friend’s cousin as his wallpaper: “She’s in Gaza now. We have to bring her back.”
Source: BFM TV
