William Molinié (in Tel Aviv) / Photo credits: AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP
The Israeli army released new videos from al-Shifa hospital this Monday, November 20, in which we can see two hostages, a Nepalese and a Thai, in the corridors of the establishment. Video surveillance tapes peeled by the army. The latter is helped by a team of cyber experts who have developed powerful facial recognition software.
Talks are accelerating this Tuesday, November 21, for the release of hostages in the hands of Hamas in exchange for a truce in the Gaza Strip. “We are getting closer to concluding a truce agreement,” Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh said on Tuesday, in a brief message in Arabic sent by his office to AFP. According to information from Europe 1, an agreement should be concluded in the coming hours.
66 hostages identified
To identify the hostages, the IDF uses powerful facial recognition software. The platform currently has more than 300,000 video clips. This facial recognition software was born on October 8, the day after the Hamas attack. “We scanned all social media: TikTok, Facebook and of course Instagram. We started to compare the photos and videos that we collected from the Gaza Strip to the images that the families brought us,” explains Franco Call Bussio who thus was able to identify 66 hostages in videos broadcast from the Gaza Strip.
“We do not replace the army, we do not replace the police”
This software, a mixture of facial recognition and artificial intelligence, is now accessible to the Israeli army which can cross-check, for example, the video surveillance of the al-Shifa hospital to detect possible hostages.
“We do not replace the army, we do not replace the police. But because we can react very quickly, because we are a team specialized in crises, it seems natural to me to volunteer in a national crisis. Our job here is to save lives,” he continues. In addition to the faces of the hostages, the software also focuses on the terrorists. Assistance in carefully preparing court files for upcoming trials.