A US charity in Gaza plans to record classroom conversations and use artificial intelligence to flag speech deemed “hateful” or “inciting.”
The plans laid out by the founder of the Gaza Children Village in a webinar last month have elicited ethical, safety and privacy concerns from some Palestinian and advocacy groups and at least one of the charity's partners.
There is no indication the charity intends to share its classrooms’ recordings with anybody else, but concerns about the potential misuse of surveillance technology are heightened in Gaza after three years of Israel’s genocidal war. The Israeli military has used AI to sift through intercepted communications to, among other things, identify targets for strikes.
Palestinian rights groups have been critical of the charity's education agenda more broadly, saying it is unaccountable to local and UN agencies that have long managed Gaza’s schools. Who controls education in Gaza is one of many unresolved questions about its postwar governance.
It is unclear when the classroom monitoring is supposed to begin, what specific language will be flagged, and whether teachers, students and their families have been told about the plans.
The charity's founder and CEO is Dr David Hasan, a neurosurgeon born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents who now teaches at Duke University medical school in Durham, North Carolina.
The charity has raised money largely from individual donors, including American Jews, and says it's partnering with North American, Israeli and European aid organisations and hospitals.
The schools' lessons are mostly built around the Palestinian Authority curriculum, but language that he says “glorified violence“ was removed, Hasan has said.
Hasan declined to comment for or provide examples of curriculum changes.
On a webinar last month with humanitarian groups, Hasan said the reason to monitor classrooms is to help train teachers in how to uphold a curriculum that he had previously said was aimed at “de-radicalisation.”
“I know it’s controversial, but trust me, it’s the only way we feel for us to survive and deliver this curriculum,” Hasan said.
The rhetoric of ‘de-radicalisation’ is what Israel and its supporters have often used to undermine Palestinian resistance and rewrite history, which is replete with Zionist atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel has maintained a crippling land, air, and sea blockade on Gaza since 2007.
Since October 7 2023, Israel has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and wounded over 175,000 in its genocide in Gaza, while around 90 percent of the besieged enclave’s infrastructure has been destroyed, according to Palestinian and UN figures.
Monitoring classrooms opens ‘Pandora’s box'
Two people affiliated with the charity expressed concerns when notified about the possibility of classroom monitoring.
“Cameras to monitor the performance of students and teachers is acceptable. But cameras to silence students and teachers from being able to have a free exchange in a classroom are not acceptable,” said Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian American political activist on the charity's board. He said he wasn't aware of the monitoring plans and that they haven't been raised with the board.
Bahbah said that with so few functioning schools in Gaza, the charity's top priority is getting more kids in classrooms.
An official at an aid group that partners with the Gaza Children Village said the use of cameras could prompt it to reconsider working with them. Using AI to monitor people’s words opens a “Pandora’s box,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Six current and former teachers at Academies of Hope declined to comment.
The system will flag language deemed ‘hateful’
Under the plans outlined by Hasan in various communications, recordings of classroom conversations will be analysed by an AI-powered system to detect “anti-Semitic,” “inciting" or “hateful” language.
If such language is detected, a warning will be sent to Hasan, who can then contact the teacher to understand the context and provide feedback, Hasan said in the September webinar. He said recordings are stored for 72 hours.
Palestinians in Gaza are especially concerned about surveillance technology
Concerns regarding surveillance technology remain acute in Gaza amid Israel's genocidal war and extensive monitoring by Israeli forces.
"Israel has weaponised information to such a dystopian degree that many Palestinians feel they cannot utter a word, type a thought, or twitch an eye without fearing it could be seized upon,” said Amjad Iraqi, senior Israel and Palestinian Territories analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Groups opposed to the charity's curriculum say Palestinians are being stripped of their autonomy in deciding what to teach their children.
“It is very concerning, they’re trying to control the minds of new generations,” said Ines Abdel Razek, co-director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy, an advocacy group.
The Palestinian Authority, which has limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and UNRWA should be supported in rebuilding schools in Gaza, she said.
