The IDF Lotem Technology Unit’s big data collection and analysis capabilities saved hundreds of Israeli mourners at a funeral on October 17 from a likely Hamas rocket attack, the Jerusalem Post has learned.
According to Lotem, part of the IDF’s C4I Branch, on October 17, the extended Zohar family was due to hold a funeral service in Rishon LeZion for family members killed by Hamas at Nahal Oz during the invasion earlier that month.
Because this was a very large event with expectations for many attendees, it was exactly the type of potential mass casualty event that Hamas would be expected to target.
This was at a time when Hamas was also still firing hundreds of rockets per day, including large numbers on Rishon LeZion and the Tel Aviv corridor daily.
How the IDF’s tech unit broke down Hamas’s rocket fire
Lotem analysts broke down Hamas’s rocket firing patterns, which they had gathered using new big data digital gathering tools, and determined where the terror group would most likely need to place its rocket launchers in order to hit the funeral procession.
In fact, Lotem told the Post that aspects of the analysis led to concrete attacks by the IDF against Hamas targets which otherwise could very well have caused “a disaster” for the mass funeral procession.
This was not the only case during the current war where the IDF was able to utilize vast amounts of data it had gathered in recent or real-time to quickly redirect IDF firepower at specific areas on a predictive basis of where Hamas rocket launchers would be in the near future – but the current war was the first time the IDF reached such a capability.
In another specific case, the Post has learned that Lotem’s big data capabilities were used to trace a pattern of rockets being fired against Israel from a specific Gaza mosque and school civilian area.
Based on an analysis of the data, the IDF’s targeting command was able to eliminate the rocket launching crews.
More generally, prior to the IDF’s invasion of Gaza in late October, an extensive analysis was performed by Lotem about where Hamas was likely to position its forces in order to be able to attack IDF forces as they entered critical areas in Gaza.
Using Lotem’s big data, the IDF was able to pre-emptively target these areas, paving the way for a much “cleaner” entry by the IDF’s larger ground forces into Gaza and leading to much fewer IDF casualties than had been anticipated.
Moreover, Lotem’s big data has been used to pre-emptively target parts of Gaza where Hamas would need to place its rocket launchers in order to try to strike IDF mass staging areas near Gaza prior to troops entering Hamas areas.
All of these achievements were accomplished by the vast data gathered by Lotem about the firing patterns of Hamas, including launch points, rocket landing points, and the identities of the launch crews in order to anticipate their next moves before they would make them.
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