Inside Israel’s AI targeting system: How cellphone data becomes a death sentence

Source Domain: www.jpost.com

The buzz of the Israeli drone was constant that day, and every time Ahmad Turmus looked up, it seemed to be circling over him, like an all-too-patient bird of prey.

So when the phone rang as he was visiting family one Monday afternoon in February, Turmus wasn’t too surprised that the person speaking accented Arabic was an Israeli military officer.

What surprised him was the question.

“Ahmad, do you want to die with those around you or alone?”

According to family members interviewed, Turmus answered with one word before hanging up: “Alone.”

An Israeli air force drone patrols the skies over the southern Gaza Strip on October 30, 2011. (credit: ABED RAHIM KHATIB/FLASH 90)

The targeting of Turmus, which Israel acknowledged, demonstrates how, time and again, its military has mastered an intelligence war for which Hezbollah appears to have no answer.

Ever since the spectacular pager attacks of September 2024, when Israel remotely detonated explosives hidden in pagers carried by Hezbollah members, foot soldiers, support personnel, field commanders, chiefs of staff, and even a revered secretary general have been felled by a targeting system powered by artificial intelligence.

IDF AI system permits near-omniscient Hezbollah tracking

The system, which fuses data from smartphones, security and traffic cameras, Wi-Fi signals, drones, government databases, and social media, has granted Israel what seems an almost omniscient ability to track Hezbollah cadres’ every movement.

Turmus, 62, was serving as a liaison between Hezbollah and residents of Talloussah, a small village less than three miles from the Israeli border, which had turned into a battlefield during Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in 2024.

Throughout the 15-month ceasefire that followed, he spent his time coordinating with repair personnel and civil defense crews to get the village running, even as Israeli strikes persisted across south Lebanon.

His family described him as a former fighter for the militant…

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