Israel using AI weapons system co-produced with Indian firm in war on Gaza
Israeli forces are using an AI weapons system in Gaza co-produced by an Indian defence company that turns machine guns and assault rifles into computerised killing machines, Middle East Eye can reveal.
According to documents and news reports seen by MEE, Israeli forces have been using the Arbel weapons system in Gaza following their devastating invasion of the enclave after the 7 October attacks on southern Israel.
Touted as a "revolutionary game changer that improves operator lethality and survivability," the Arbel system enhances machine guns and assault weapons - such as the Israeli-produced Tavor, Carmel and Negev - into a weapon that uses algorithms to boost soldiers chances of hitting targets more accurately and efficiently.
The past 13 months has seen Israeli forces engage in a catalogue of massacres - from bombing schools and refugee camps and hospitals to conducting executions on the streets of Gaza.
More women and children have been killed by Israeli firepower than in any other conflict over the past 20 years while close to 1,000 entire families have been erased.
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Conservative estimates put the total number of Palestinians killed at 44,000 but a letter to President Joe Biden from a group of almost 100 US medics who had been to Gaza estimated a death toll of more than 118,000 in October. A letter in the UK medical journal The Lancet said the death toll could be more than 180,000.
Although defence analysts say the weapon system may not be as cutting-edge or as widely used as the "Lavender" or "The Gospel" AI weapons systems - that are reported to have played a huge role in the tremendous death toll in Gaza - Arbel appears to be the first weapons system to directly tie India to Israel's rapidly expanding AI war in Gaza in what could have wide-ranging implications for other conflicts.
In September, a UN report said it was "deeply alarmed by the unprecedented destruction of civilian infrastructure and high death toll in Gaza, which raise serious concerns about the use by Israel of artificial intelligence in directing its military campaign".
"Credible media reports indicate that the Israeli military lowered the criteria for selecting targets while increasing their previously accepted ratio of civilian to combatant casualties," the report compiled by the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People, said.
Like many Israeli weapon systems, the name Arbel has its origins in the Bible. Arbel is also the name of the Israeli town that was built around the site of a Palestinian village, Hitten, that was ethnically cleansed in 1948.
Escaping backlash
Originally unveiled as a co-venture between Israeli Weapons Industries (IWI) and the Indian company Adani Defence & Aerospace, Arbel was announced at a defence expo in Gandhinagar in Gujarat in October 2022. IWI was an Israeli state-owned company between 1933 and 2005.
At the time, several Indian media sites hailed the weapon, describing it as "India's first AI-based firing system". However in April 2024, six months into the war on Gaza, IWI introduced the weapon as "the first computerized weapon system".
IWI said the weapon "increases the lethality, accuracy and survivability of the operator by up to three times."
Israeli journalists were given a demonstration in northern Israel, where they were informed the system was being rolled out because of the unique demands of the modern battlefield.
Not only was there no mention of it having been co-produced with Adani Defence & Aerospace, there was no indication that it had already been unveiled at a defence expo 18 months earlier.
'Arbel could easily be used to make the killing of civilians, of children, more efficient'
- Noah Sylvia, Royal United Services Institute
The developers also did not disclose that Israeli ground troops had been using Arbel since they entered Gaza in October 2023.
While it's unclear what role each company played in the production of Arbel, it is likely that IWI and Adani were jointly involved in manufacturing the components with the electronics and the AI system, and the assembly of the product most likely taking place in Israel.
Over the past year several Indian companies have, with the explicit permission of the Indian government and judiciary, continued to collaborate with Israel in its ever-expanding war effort in Gaza and the surrounding region.
But the exclusion of Adani from IWI's marketing material of the product has raised suspicions that the company may be wary of a public backlash following the criticism it faced after it was revealed it had sent drones to Israel months after the war on Gaza began, or looking to protect itself from culpability should Israel be sanctioned over its conduct in Gaza.
"The fact that Israel is utilising AI weapons like the Arbel, developed in part through Indian collaboration, underscores the increasing role of AI in modern warfare," Girish Linganna, a defence analyst based in India, said.
"Although this technology improves military efficiency, it also raises ethical concerns about the increased lethality and potential for misuse in conflict situations," Linganna added.
Defence analysts say that given the scarcity of information around the weapon technology, it is unclear to what extent it has been used in Gaza since the war began.
However, they are unanimous in their assessment that even if the weapon is meant to assist combatants target enemy fighters more efficiently by reducing the number of stray bullets and the murder of innocents, in the case of the Israeli army, it's likely Arbel has been used to carry out the carnage of Palestinians in a more efficient manner in Gaza.
"One of the most revealing aspects of Israel's mass slaughter in Gaza is that targeting civilians was the point. It was never about just going after Hamas," Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist who has been tracking new technologies being used in Gaza and occupied West Bank for years, told MEE.
"I have spoken to people in Gaza, I have seen the direct human impact of this kind of killing. It is horrific," Loewenstein, the author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports The Technology of Occupation Around The World, added.
Noah Sylvia, a research analyst at Royal United Services Institute in London, echoed Loewenstein's sentiment, adding that the impact of the tool depended "solely on the military’s operating procedures and commitment to international humanitarian law (IHL)."
In the case of militaries who dehumanise populations and routinely violate protection of civilians, Sylvia says tools which are touted as "improving efficiency" are "often used to increase the scale of destruction to territories and populations.
"The Israeli Defence Forces [Israeli army] has demonstrated a disregard for civilian life in Gaza to the point of routinely targeting children with small arms, meaning that Arbel could easily be used to make the killing of civilians, of children, more efficient," Sylvia added.
Israel's Department of Defence directed MEE's queries to the Israeli military who did not respond to requests for comment.
India's role in Israel's war on Gaza
Indian weapon components have played a shadowy role in Israel's war on Gaza over the past year, prompting several Indian activists and lawyers to pressure Delhi to halt military exchanges with Israel.
In February, it was reported that 20 Indian-made Israeli combat drones were delivered to Israel, with an Indian news channel claiming the Hermes 900 drones would assist "Israel's needs in the Israel-Hamas war".
At the time, defence analysts told MEE that given Israel's reliance on Hermes drones for reconnaissance missions as well as for air strikes on Gaza, it was inconceivable these would have not ended up being used to supplement Israel's war effort.
Incidentally, the drones were co-produced by Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India Ltd, a joint venture between India’s Adani Defence and Aerospace and Israel’s other major weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.
A few months later, in April, it emerged that rocket engines, explosive substances, and propellants for cannons were loaded on a ship in India for the Israeli port of Ashdod. In May, another vessel carrying weapons from India was refused entry to Spain on account of it carrying explosives en route to Israel.
The revelations about an AI weapon made in conjunction with Israel being used in Gaza is likely to reignite calls for an arms embargo, activists and observers said.
So far, the efforts have not amounted to any changes to government policy, with the highest court in India continuing to back the ongoing relationship. India's close friendship with Israel has seen Delhi become one of Israel's most vociferous defenders of its US-backed war on Gaza.
Though it has supported a ceasefire, observers note its investment in Israel's military industrial complex as well as in Israeli armed tactics has also meant Delhi would be hard pressed to back an arms embargo despite calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
In September, this culminated in the Indian supreme court dismissing a petition seeking to suspend military exports from India.
"It can indeed be challenging to pinpoint the exact production location of systems like the Arbel, particularly because defence companies and governments often keep such information opaque due to security and geopolitical concerns," Linganna added.
Both IWI and Adani Defence and Aerospace did not reply to MEE's request for comment or clarity.
Israel, India, and AI
In an environment in which India-Israel collaborations are usually venerated to the point of parody, it's unclear why Adani's role has been minimised in the subsequent communication about Arbel.
When the system was unveiled to the Indian public in October 2022, Ashish Rajvanshi, CEO of Adani Defence & Aerospace, described it as aiding soldiers' lethality and survivability, especially in moments of stress and exhaustion.
Echoing Rajvanshi's description of the product in June 2024 at an defence exhibit in France, Ronen Hamudot, executive vice president for marketing and sales at IWI, described Arbel as featuring "an electronic trigger with a new firing mode, enhancing accuracy in high-pressure situations where seconds count".
'The lawlessness and impunity in which Israel commits egregious crimes with the use of AI should terrify everyone'
- Marwa Fatafta, Access Now
Linganna cited that the sensitivity of the ongoing war in Gaza as well as potential backlash associated with companies for their participation as a possible reason for Adani's absence from marketing material.
"Another reason could be strategic or political considerations, where emphasising the involvement of a foreign partner may complicate diplomatic relations or public sentiment," he said.
This however does not mean that behind closed doors Adani wouldn't be using the opportunity to showcase its role in "combat-proven" products to clients elsewhere.
Marwa Fatafta, Middle East policy and advocacy director for Access Now, a digital rights organisation, told MEE that Israel was using Gaza as a testing lab to showcase to the world "a new and terrifying blueprint for tech-enabled warfare ... this time through Indian-Israel military tech".
"Rarely does a technology stay dormant in one location," Fatafta says, adding that, "the lawlessness and impunity in which Israel commits egregious crimes with the use of AI should terrify everyone."
Meanwhile, the military and technological exchanges and partnerships are expanding at a record rate, with Israel looking to Delhi as both a source of cheaper labour and as a market for its products both within India and elsewhere. And a central plank of this interest in India is the focus on AI.
In recent years, the Indian government has looked to AI as a means to expedite economic growth in the country.
Between 2013 and 2022, Indian AI companies are said to have received the sixth-highest investments in AI globally, a mammoth US$7.73bn.
According to one report earlier this year, the Indian AI market is expected to grow between US$17bn and US$22bn by 2027 and with experts anticipating India would become home to one of the largest talent pools of AI-skilled workers on the planet.
This has naturally drawn Israeli government, universities, as well as investors towards Indian start-up, talent, and institutions of higher learning.
A recent MEE investigation found that since Israel launched its war on Gaza, there were no less than two dozen meetings, memorandums of understanding and partnerships between Israeli universities and companies in the fields of robotics, AI, and defence research with their counterparts in India.
Trade union leaders opposed to the move described the developments as "pushing Indian universities into the emerging Indo-Israeli military-industrial complex."
At an Israeli-government arranged AI bootcamp for Indian start-ups earlier this month, Reuven Azar, Israel's ambassador to India, told reporters that India provided Israel with a domestic market as well as access to third markets, especially in the United States and Europe.
"So many Israeli companies are trying to cooperate to develop together technologies, also to commercialise technologies, make production here in India, and to market. And this is a very important effort for us as we try to grow our technological exports and technological prowess around the world," he said.
The expansion of AI weaponry
Activists in India who have been organising against their government's complicity in Israel's war on Gaza, said it was an outrage that weapon collaborations between the two countries were still taking place, given the unprecedented horrors that continue to take place in Gaza, as well as in the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.
That the partnerships were now moving into the dystopian hemisphere of AI in which there was even more ambiguity as well as space for even more mass murder, seemed unthinkable.
"It is very disheartening to see the people in India who are concerned about the genocide happening in Gaza are not able to do anything substantial to stop it," an activist, who asked to remain anonymous over fear of reprisals, told MEE.
Observers note that Arbel was likely part of a broader trend in defence where AI is increasingly being integrated into weapons systems across the globe at a startling rate.
They say that it is likely more AI-based systems are being co-developed, extending to possibly including drones, surveillance technologies, and more advanced autonomous systems that would be exported worldwide.
It is this fear that has led activists monitoring the expansion of big tech to caution against underestimating India's role as a future hub of AI weapons manufacturing.
Loewenstein says that until there are legal ramifications for the killing of mass killings of civilians, these so-called AI tools are only going to proliferate.
"Given that India is already Israel's biggest buyer of weapons - the official stats suggest 40 percent to 45 percent though my guess is that the real number is higher - I am worried that this tool will be used by Indian soldiers within its own borders or for that matter exported globally," Loewenstein said.
"I'd be worried that this kind of tool would be exported to other regimes and governments - democratic or despotic - who will use it for their own nefarious ends," Loewenstein added.
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