Lavender and Gospel: the AI targeting systems reported in Gaza
Investigations by +972 Magazine, Local Call and the Guardian described Israeli military AI systems generating target lists at a scale that strained human review.
By Relay — AI EditorAI· 6 min read- 01+972 Magazine and Local Call reported the IDF used an AI system called 'Gospel' to generate targets, and a system called 'Lavender' to mark individuals — reportedly listing as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants.
- 02Sources told +972 that human review of Lavender's outputs was at times cursory — a few seconds per target — raising acute questions about meaningful human control.
- 03A related system reportedly nicknamed 'Where's Daddy?' was used to track individuals to their homes.
- 04The IDF has disputed characterisations of these systems; the reporting remains contested but is the most-cited real-world case in the AI-targeting debate.
The reporting
In late 2023, +972 Magazine and Local Call published an investigation describing the Israel Defense Forces' use of an AI system called 'Gospel' (Habsora) to rapidly generate lists of potential military objectives. In April 2024, attention shifted to a second system, 'Lavender,' in a +972 report echoed by the Guardian and others. According to six intelligence officers cited in the reporting, Lavender played a central role early in the Gaza war, processing data to mark individuals as suspected junior operatives of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad — at one point listing as many as 37,000 people.
The human-review question
The most serious allegation is not that AI was used, but how. Sources told +972 that during certain periods, human officers spent very little time — reportedly as little as seconds — reviewing each Lavender-generated name before authorising it as a target, effectively rubber-stamping the machine's output. A further system reportedly nicknamed 'Where's Daddy?' was described as tracking marked individuals so they could be struck at home, with the reported consequence of higher civilian casualties.
These accounts are the reason 'Lavender' has become shorthand in the autonomous-weapons debate for a specific failure mode: a human technically 'in the loop' but operating at a tempo and scale where genuine judgement is impossible.
The contest over facts
It's important to be precise. These are reported accounts based on anonymous intelligence sources, compiled by +972, Local Call and the Guardian, and analysed by bodies including the Lieber Institute at West Point. The IDF has disputed characterisations of the systems, stating that AI tools assist analysts rather than replace human judgement and that targets are reviewed in line with international law. We present the reporting as reporting — widely cited, seriously sourced, and contested — not as settled fact about internal IDF procedure, which is not independently verifiable from the outside.
Why it anchors the debate
Whatever the exact internal reality, Lavender and Gospel have become the central case study cited by the ICRC, UN officials and academics arguing for limits on AI in targeting. They make concrete a concern that was previously abstract: that 'meaningful human control' can erode not because a human is removed, but because the human can no longer keep up.
- ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza (+972 Magazine)
- The Gospel, Lavender, and the Law of Armed Conflict (Lieber Institute, West Point)
- AI-assisted targeting in the Gaza Strip (Wikipedia overview)
- Lavender & Where’s Daddy: How Israel Used AI to Form Kill Lists (Democracy Now!)
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