How Israel Relied on Complex Intelligence, AI to Find Hostages in Gaza

 A woman walks past photos of hostages who were kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack (Reuters)
 A woman walks past photos of hostages who were kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack (Reuters)
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How Israel Relied on Complex Intelligence, AI to Find Hostages in Gaza

 A woman walks past photos of hostages who were kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack (Reuters)
 A woman walks past photos of hostages who were kidnapped in the deadly October 7 attack (Reuters)

In a complex intelligence operation, the Israeli army has recovered this week the bodies of six hostages taken to Gaza, reflecting the constant progress in gathering information to find hostages since the October 7 attacks.
It took Israeli combat engineers hours of nighttime digging deep inside a 650-foot long tunnel in Khan Younis to unearth what they were looking for. The bodies of four men and one woman, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The discovery came after a Palestinian detained by Israeli forces in Gaza told the soldiers where to look.
“It's hard to get the smell out of your head,” said a reservist with the military's 98th division who took part in the operation. “It's also psychological because you know it's the smell of a human being.”
In the haze after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, Israel didn't know which of the thousands of people missing were kidnapped or dead.
More than 10 months later, and after a military operation that has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel began using modern technology and artificial intelligence to piece together the puzzle.
The WSJ report said Israel has obtained troves of valuable Hamas data as it has unearthed laptops, cellphones and documents from Gaza, using artificial intelligence. And with American help, it has boosted its signals intelligence.
Also, human intelligence has also been key—recovered from Palestinians arrested by Israel inside Gaza and others who provide information to Israeli forces.
“These bodies were there for a few months, and it took time for us to put the picture together and conduct such a mission,” said Israel Ziv, a retired Israeli general who gets briefed by military officials, referring to the operation in July.
Also, Karine Nahon, an Israeli information scientist from Reichman University in central Israel, established a team of volunteers who scanned social media and developed algorithms to comb through 200,000 videos to identify missing people. The team then shared their findings with intelligence officials. “In the beginning nobody worked with us,” Nahon said. “The state wasn't there.”
According to Ofer Merin, director-general of Shaare Zedek, a couple of weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, a committee of health experts was tasked with viewing classified intelligence and determining whether hostages were dead or alive to notify families and inform negotiations.
The committee so far has determined that more than 40 hostages are dead based on security-camera footage in Israel.
Another obstacle is that hostages are spread throughout the enclave and are moved around to make locating them harder, according to WSJ.
Released hostage Aviva Siegel told the Journal that she was held in 13 different locations both above and below ground during her 51 days in Gaza.
And while rescuing hostages alive is considered very challenging, locating captives' bodies can also be complex since they are often hidden.
In December, the bodies of two hostages were found in garbage bags in a tunnel in northern Gaza, according to Orin Gantz, the mother of one of the hostages.
Even when Israel has all the intelligence in place, it doesn't always choose to launch a rescue mission.
Recovering the bodies of the dead hostages remains a major challenge because Hamas is deliberately hiding them in multiple and complex locations.
Therefore, Israel is facing challenges to recover hostages, whether alive or dead, under extremely difficult security and political circumstances.

 

 



A Father Mourns 2 Sons Killed in an Israeli Strike as Hunger Worsens in Gaza

 Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP)
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP)
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A Father Mourns 2 Sons Killed in an Israeli Strike as Hunger Worsens in Gaza

 Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP)
Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli army bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP)

Three brothers in the Gaza Strip woke up early to run to a local clinic to get “sweets,” their word for the emergency food supplements distributed by aid groups. By the time their father woke up, two of the brothers had been fatally wounded by an Israeli strike and the third had lost an eye.

The strike outside the clinic on Thursday in the central city of Deir al-Balah killed 14 people, including nine children, according to a local hospital, which had initially reported 10 children killed but later said one had died in a separate incident.

The Israeli military said it targeted a gunman it said had taken part in the Hamas attack that ignited the 21-month war. Security camera footage appeared to show two young men targeted as they walked past the clinic where several people were squatting outside.

Hatem Al-Nouri's four-year-old son, Amir, was killed immediately. His eight-year-old son, Omar, was still breathing when he reached the hospital but died shortly thereafter. He said that at first he didn't recognize his third son, two-year-old Siraj, because his eye had been torn out.

“What did these children do to deserve this?” the father said as he broke into tears. “They were dreaming of having a loaf of bread.”

Violence in the West Bank

In a separate development, Israeli settlers killed two Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. It said Seifeddin Musalat, 23, was beaten to death and Mohammed al-Shalabi, 23, was shot in the chest in the village of Sinjil near the city of Ramallah. Both were 23.

The military said Palestinians had hurled rocks at Israelis in the area earlier on Friday, lightly wounding two people. That set off a larger confrontation that included “vandalism of Palestinian property, arson, physical clashes, and rock hurling,” the army said. It said troops had dispersed the crowds, without saying if anyone was arrested.

Palestinians and rights groups have long accused the military of ignoring settler violence, which has spiked — along with Palestinian attacks and Israeli military raids — since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

‘Sharp and unprecedented’ rise in malnutrition

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in recent weeks while trying to get food, according to local health officials. Experts say hunger is widespread among the territory's 2 million Palestinians and that Israel’s blockade and military offensive have put them at risk of famine.

The deputy director of the World Food Program said Friday that humanitarian needs and constraints on the UN’s ability to provide aid are worse than he’s ever seen, saying “starvation is spreading” and one in three people are going for days without eating.

Carl Skau told UN reporters in New York that on a visit to Gaza last week he didn’t see any markets, only small amounts of potatoes being sold on a few street corners in Gaza City. He was told that a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of flour now costs over $25.

The international aid group Doctors Without Borders said it has recorded a “sharp and unprecedented rise" in acute malnutrition at two clinics it operates in Gaza, with more than 700 pregnant and breastfeeding women, and nearly 500 children, receiving outpatient therapeutic food.

“Our neonatal intensive care unit is severely overcrowded, with four to five babies sharing a single incubator," Dr. Joanne Perry, a physician with the group, said in a statement. “This is my third time in Gaza, and I’ve never seen anything like this. Mothers are asking me for food for their children, pregnant women who are six months along often weigh no more than 40 kilograms (88 pounds).”

The Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in Gaza says it is allowing enough food to enter and blames the UN and other aid groups for not promptly distributing it.

Risking their lives for food

Israel ended a ceasefire and renewed its offensive in March. It eased a 2 1/2 month blockade in May, but the UN and aid groups say they are struggling to distribute humanitarian aid because of Israeli military restrictions and a breakdown of law and order that has led to widespread looting.

A separate aid mechanism built around an American group backed by Israel has Palestinians running a deadly gantlet to reach its sites. Witnesses and health officials say hundreds have been killed by Israeli fire while heading toward the distribution points through military zones off limits to independent media.

The military has acknowledged firing warning shots at Palestinians who it says approached its forces in a suspicious manner.

The Israeli- and US-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation denies there has been any violence in or around its sites. But two of its contractors told The Associated Press that their colleagues have fired live ammunition and stun grenades as Palestinians scramble for food, allegations denied by the foundation.

The UN Human Rights Office said Thursday that it has recorded 798 killings near Gaza aid sites in a little over a month leading up to July 7. Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the office, said 615 were killed “in the vicinity of the GHF sites" and the remainder on convoy routes used by other aid groups.

A GHF spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the group's policies, rejected the “false and misleading stats," saying most of the deaths were linked to shootings near UN convoys, which pass by Israeli army positions and have been attacked by armed gangs and unloaded by crowds.

Israel has long accused UN bodies of being biased against it.

No ceasefire after two days of Trump-Netanyahu talks

Hamas-led fighters killed some 1,200 people in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and abducted 251. They still hold 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel's offensive has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The UN and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war. But there were no signs of a breakthrough this week after two days of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.