Occupied West Bank Palestinians 'exhausted' by intense Israeli surveillance

Rotating cameras planted on a rooftop terrace "follow our every move", said Al Khalil resident Umm Nasser, protesting intensified Israeli surveillance of her occupied West Bank city since the start of Israel's war on besieged Gaza.

"Psychologically, I'm exhausted," admitted the 55-year-old Palestinian woman. She lives above the Abu al Rish checkpoint, the site of frequent violence at the heart of historical Al Khalil.

It is one of numerous sentry boxes manned by Israeli forces separating Palestinian streets from Jewish illegal settler enclaves in the old town, which hosts a disputed holy site.

Known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi mosque and to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, it is revered by both faiths.

Dozens of heavily armed Israeli soldiers guard the site, assisted by security cameras.

Umm Nasser said that surveillance enhanced by artificial intelligence tools has become "especially difficult during the war" between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas in besieged Gaza.

To Umm Nasser, the use of technology is stifling.

"We've tried putting pieces of wood or fabric over the cameras to maintain our privacy, but every time, the army removes them," she said.

"One day, soldiers took our identity cards and told us they were going to use them for a facial recognition system."

She said she hadn't heard about it since.

Shai Cohen, a 23-year-old Israeli settler, said the surveillance cameras scattered all over the city "very [much] help us" to feel safe.

Facial recognition technology — highly regulated in civilian settings — is used by Israeli forces along with a range of advanced tools in the Palestinian territories they have occupied since 1967.

'Automated surveillance'

"Blue Wolf", for example, is an app soldiers use on their mobile phones. They take face pictures of Palestinians, which are then checked against a database.

Once matched, the system indicates whether the person photographed is wanted for arrest.

This system is part of the Israeli army's "frictionless occupation strategy", said Sophia Goodfriend, a doctoral student specialising in artificial intelligence and human rights.

The app "relies on automated surveillance technology, often based on artificial intelligence and designed to reduce interaction" between soldiers and Palestinians, Goodfriend told the AFP news agency.

Another system, "Red Wolf", has been deployed at Israeli checkpoints in Al Khalil since at least 2022, according to an investigation by human rights group Amnesty International.

Soldiers know "before I approach the checkpoint that I'm 'red' in the system. It means I'm 'a threat'," said Al Khalil activist Issa Amro, lamenting yet "another layer of humiliation".

He said residents had their photos taken without their consent, and they do not know how Israel uses their images and data that it collects.

In late 2022, the army confirmed it was testing a surveillance system with riot control tools developed by a private firm, Smart Shooter.

The remote-controlled system can fire shots which, according to the army, are not lethal.

'Anxiety and fear'

The automated tools make for "more and more efficient" control over the lives of Palestinians, who are further "dehumanised" in the process, according to the Israeli anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence.

"The very purpose and essence of the system is to create anxiety and fear," said Adel, a rights defender living in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem who asked to use a pseudonym because of security concerns.

"Our behaviour and movements are scrutinised."

In east Jerusalem, he said, facial recognition technology is regularly used by Israeli forces during demonstrations.

Adel recalled an inspection at a checkpoint when "many pages of data appeared on the tablet" used by the soldiers.

"They mentioned an arrest that occurred several years earlier and for which I had been cleared by the courts," he said.

Footage and media reports from Gaza have raised concerns over the use of facial recognition technology by Israeli forces there, too.

The army said that as part of the war, it was conducting "security and intelligence operations".

Online videos from mid-November showed Palestinians fleeing south for safety, passing through gates allegedly equipped with surveillance tech.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that "smart" cameras had been installed at Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital during a raid by Israeli troops.

In its brutal war on besieged Gaza, Israel has killed at least 27,585 Palestinians and wounded 66,978 others so far.