The nuclear scientists were killed using a special weapon whose details were barred from publication, Channel 12 says.

The 10th nuclear scientist was killed shortly after the other nine, as part of the overnight Thursday-Friday Israeli operation, which included strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile program and the Natanz nuclear site, along with the elimination of top members of the Islamic Republic’s military leadership, the network says.

The nuclear scientists were all killed while they were sleeping in their beds, with Israel deciding to carry out the assassinations simultaneously so that there wouldn’t be time to tip off those being targeted.

The scientists apparently believed they were safe from such targeting in their homes, a senior Israeli official tells Channel 12, noting that previously assassinated nuclear scientists were killed while heading to their cars after work.

Israel had been tracking Iranian nuclear scientists for years and the ten killed last week were marked for assassination in November of last year, Channel 12 says.

Just when I feel like dystopian news can’t really disturb me anymore…

Leaving this totally unrelated article about Palantir and Israel here for absolutely no reason at all…

How Israel Uses AI in Gaza—And What It Might Mean for the Future of Warfare:

A program known as “The Gospel” generates suggestions for buildings and structures militants may be operating in. “Lavender” is programmed to identify suspected members of Hamas and other armed groups for assassination, from commanders all the way down to foot soldiers. “Where’s Daddy?” reportedly follows their movements by tracking their phones in order to target them—often to their homes, where their presence is regarded as confirmation of their identity. The air strike that follows might kill everyone in the target’s family, if not everyone in the apartment building.

Abraham, whose report relies on conversations with six Israeli intelligence officers with first-hand experience in Gaza operations after Oct. 7, quoted targeting officers as saying they found themselves deferring to the Lavender program, despite knowing that it produces incorrect targeting suggestions in roughly 10% of cases.

  • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Anyone who gets uncomfortable with government surveillance because it could be used to target certain demographics of people needs to look no further than what Israel has done to prove their point.

    The only thing stopping the world from autonomously targeting people by online demographic is common human decency, and humanity is running on very short supply of that these days.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      But that is their dream for the future. Purely automatically managing the populace as some sort of a farm.

      It’s an arms race. Like at any other point in history. Between those who think personal dignity and freedom and equality are a mistake of history or a device to keep the herd patient, and that they deserve to rule, and those who don’t.

      The good part is that this has already been tried. A fast system with deadlocks is not that different from a slow system with deadlocks. And a big redundant system deterministically degrading in itself is not that different from a smaller less redundant system deterministically degrading in itself. No USSR and no Nazi Germany anymore on the map.

      The parts about lying and false pretense of law and democracy are new, but not too much - rulers of Frederic the Great’s time had false pretenses of knightly behavior and following imperial mechanisms. One can even compare 30 years war to our two world wars in the sense of creating a new world order, which was considered impossible to change due to endless horrors following that, but eventually become a farce.