Targeting of IT Experts in Gaza

https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6228

by pbiggar • 2 years ago

68 34 2 years ago

salah7252• 2 years ago

Feels like a continued smoke signal for people in tech to get loud and involved.

From using drones with mounted guns to this, technology is being abused to carry out this vicious moment in history that tech has ignored LOUDLY.

Qem4• 2 years ago

From using drones with mounted guns to this, technology is being abused to carry out this vicious moment in history that tech has ignored LOUDLY.

The silence, when not outright complicity in the tech sector reminds me of this holocaust quote:

  First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
  
  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
  
  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
  
  Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
  
  —Martin Niemöller (source: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists )

As Aaron Bushnell said, many of us like to ask ourselves, “What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?” The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now. Anyone who shrugs to what is happening in Gaza ghetto now also would shrug witnessing what happened in Warsaw ghetto.

runarberg4• 2 years ago

In this case they came for technology experts, we are technology experts, and yet, we don’t say anything.

jjgreen• 2 years ago

The "socialists" is from the 1950s US poetic version of Niemöller's confession of 1946:

... the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers. Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians—"should I be my brother's keeper?"

So most other countries have the poetic version as "First they came for the communists ..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

wahnfrieden7• 2 years ago

I'm reminded of My Lai

Captain Ernest Medina told his men that nearly all the civilian residents of the hamlets in Sơn Mỹ village would have left for the market by 07:00, and that any who remained would most likely be VC or VC sympathizers. He was asked whether the order included the killing of women and children. Those present later gave differing accounts of Medina's response. Some, including platoon leaders, testified that the orders, as they understood them, were to kill all VC and North Vietnamese combatants and "suspects" (including women and children, as well as all animals), to burn the village, and pollute the wells.[23] He was quoted as saying, "They're all VC, now go and get them", and was heard to reply to the question "Who is my enemy?", by saying, "Anybody that was running from us, hiding from us, or appeared to be the enemy. If a man was running, shoot him, sometimes even if a woman with a rifle was running, shoot her."
"A sweep operation was conducted recently… Crazy American enemy used light machine guns and all kinds of weapons to kill our innocent civilian people in [My Lai]. Most of them were women, kids, just born babies and pregnant women. They shot everything they saw. They killed all domestic animals. They burned all people’s houses. There were 26 families killed completely – no survivors… The American wolf forgot its good sheep’s appearance."
"The only crime I have committed is in judgement of my values. Apparently, I valued my troops’ lives more than I did the lives of the enemy." -- William Calley, ‘C’ Company lieutenant

Even though innocent brothers and sisters in tech are being slaughtered now, I expect this thread to be flagged and locked within minutes... It is already flagged off the front page.

cornholio2• 2 years ago

It seems highly unlikely IDF would waste resources target individual civilians, follow them around Gaza and eliminate them to prevent their skills being used by Hamas, when the same techniques (say, cell phone tracking drones) can be used directly against high value targets in the Hamas leadership, or at the very least the foot soldiers who are likely to be around such targets.

wahnfrieden7• 2 years ago

IDF uses a custom AI system (widely reported) to select targets and propose missile strikes

cornholio2• 2 years ago

Regardless of specific technique for target selection, resource pressure is still there, IDF has thus far failed in its stated goal to eradicate Hamas leadership. A React-JS programmer is simply a bad target to spend resources on.

Qem4• 2 years ago

It seems highly unlikely IDF would waste resources target individual civilians, follow them around Gaza and eliminate them to prevent their skills being used by Hamas

This has nothing to do with optimizing resources to defeat Hamas. If Tel Aviv regime really wanted that, they should just stop allowing Netanyahu to fund Hamas[1] in his effort to undermine Palestine Authority (the Palestinian group that actually gave up on armed resistance), as the later can't be presented as a proper boogeyman to keep the public scared dumb.

It's all about sabotaging the two-state solution, maintaining the apartheid and enforcing a media blackout, not allowing the Palestinians to document the genocide and ethnic cleansing being perpetrated against them. First IDF targeted and killed journalists in droves, as previously discussed here[2]. But the images from the daily massacres, filmed by victims, still circled the world. Targeting IT staff is a criminal decision to make more difficult for the war crimes to be properly documented and known.

[1]. https://www.politico.eu/article/israel-funded-hamas-claims-e...

[2]. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39603299

CyberDildonics• 2 years ago

There have been 29,000 deaths and all aid has been cut off along with cement poured in their plumbing so they have no fresh water.

https://time.com/6696507/palestinian-death-toll-gaza-israel-...

1 in 100 people have been killed in gaza since october 7th.

Entire neighborhoods have been leveled by bombs and bulldozed.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/07/world/middlee...

gloyoyo• 2 years ago

Sad.

underdeserver• 2 years ago

Yep, definitely an unbiased source, sure.

runarberg4• 2 years ago

I’m not sure what you mean. They compiled a list of technology specialists and concluded that there was enough evidence there to claim that IT experts are being targeted. The list includes names such as Haitham Muhammad Al-Nabahin. If you want an independent verification that he was indeed killed, and a prominent programmer, here is a news link[1] published the day before this report. You can do the same for e.g. Tariq Thabet[2].

The people on the list compiled by Euro-med HRM were all killed by the Israeli army in its ongoing genocide in Gaza. It doesn’t matter how biased the source is, the list is still there full of martyrs, each one of them experts in the IT industry, and no doubt some of them even with accounts here on HN which they leave behind.

1: https://countylocalnews.com/2024/03/15/gaza-family-killed-in...

2: https://www.wkar.org/wkar-news/2023-11-07/tariq-thabet-remem...

hshar• 2 years ago

They do this constantly even in other countries. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231122-turkiye-intellige...

Qem4• 2 years ago

Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20240317222546/https://euromedmo...

runarberg4• 2 years ago

Moderators. This needs to be unflagged. It is highly relevant to HN. This is a list of people within our industry who have now been martyred in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. There are dozens of names on this list, some of these martyrs may even leave behind accounts here on HN.

Qem4• 2 years ago

There are dozens of names on this list, some of these martyrs may even leave behind accounts here on HN.

Early in the current Gaza siege, a few months ago, IIRC, there was a Palestinian programmer taking part on the discussions here on HN. I don't see her posting here anymore. Hope she is still alive.

smashah• 2 years ago

@dang, please unflag this.

wackysid• 2 years ago

They have targeted academics and medical professionals so it’s not surprising if they’ve been targeting IT professionals as well. Their main aim is to make sure that Gaza is not able to get back in its feet when the military onslaught is over.

dunekid• 2 years ago

Another flagging to silence, as it was with many other news. Why not this one too? It was not looking like the community was particularly concerned about those. Now the jobs these people did might be similar to what this community does, but if you are not willing to see the despair of children with no family, or of people who are starving while food rots across border, how could we expect us to understand this; because one person was using vim as much you were using? I hope none of us are targeted by our resume. Meanwhile we can just ignore this, just as we were ignoring it in the past.

pvg5• 2 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39728343

wahnfrieden7• 2 years ago

So the development that the IDF is targeting non-combatant tech workers is flagged because, per your link, "The issue is how often to have a thread about it". Tech workers being targeted is not considered a new topic because there was already enough talk about Gaza before this news. The news that civilian tech workers (including YC members) are now targeted is not distinct - it's all "Israel attacks Gaza" and that's already been covered to exhaustion, is how I interpret your link.

ukuuru• 2 years ago

A pretty effective genocide and cleansing campaign. Bomb crowded camps, target valuable people who glues the people together, doctors, academicians, engineers. Watch the society disintegrates.

tachyons• 2 years ago

Flagged again, as expected ¯\_ (ツ) _/¯ . HN moderators are complicit in the genocide!

Targeting of IT Experts in Gaza

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