New book reveals that "Palantir" technology helped Israel carry out the pager device attack in Lebanon

A new book has revealed that the Israeli occupation army used technology developed by the American company Palantir during the attacks it launched on Lebanon in 2024, including the large-scale attack that targeted the pagers (paging) and wireless communications of Hezbollah, which was known in Israel as "Operation Death Whistle." 

The book, a biography of the company's co-founder and CEO Alex Karp, is titled "The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir and the Rise of the Surveillance State," and was written by New York Times journalist Michael Steinberger. The author says that the company's technologies were "used by the Israelis during military operations in Lebanon that eliminated a large part of Hezbollah's senior leadership," and were also used in the attack in which Israel detonated thousands of pagers and wireless communication devices that the party relied on.

The account in the book indicates that the operation took place after years of planning, as Israel was able to deceive Hezbollah into buying booby-trapped devices from a fictitious company established for this purpose.

The initial attack occurred on September 17, 2024, when thousands of pagers exploded in Lebanon and Syria at once, followed the next day by the bombing of wireless communication devices, which led to additional injuries, some during the funerals of the victims of the first explosion.

According to official Lebanese figures, the attacks killed about 40 people, including 12 civilians, in addition to injuring and disfiguring dozens. Among the victims was a nine-year-old girl named Fatima, whose pager exploded while she was carrying it, killing her. 

Although Steinberger does not clearly explain the nature of Palantir's technical contribution to the bombings, previous sources within Israeli intelligence confirm that the operation required high-level digital equipment to manage the stages of booby-trapping, follow-up, and simultaneous detonation.

The book reveals that employees at Palantir denied their involvement in developing AI targeting systems used in Gaza, which 972 Magazine reports had previously revealed. But the author points out that the American company supported Israel in other ways during its war on the sector, as the Israeli occupation army used its programs in several hostage release operations, and also helped organize the handover of detainees released by Hamas. The book also states that "Palantir contributed to countering Iranian missile attacks within the US Department of Defense's "Maven" project.

In the context of the escalating controversy surrounding the company's role, the book recounts an incident in which Karp faced a protester who accused Palantir's technology of "killing Palestinians," which Karp did not explicitly deny, and only said: "Most of them are terrorists, that's right." 

These data reveal the extent of the entanglement between American technology companies and the Israeli military establishment, and the ethical questions that this raises about the private sector's involvement in bloody conflicts that transcend national borders. The book also highlights the way in which modern wars are being reshaped through digital tools that allow precise targeting and complex operations far from the battlefields. In the absence of sufficient transparency, there is growing concern that these companies are turning into geopolitical players with unaccountable influence.