Israeli civilians join forces to try to locate hostages

Dozens of wanted notices, relayed again during the day of Sunday October 15 on social networks. What happened to these men, women and children who are missing? Israeli civil society is organizing. In Tel Aviv (Israel), the exhibition center was transformed into a crisis unit. In this hive there are 450 computer scientists, high technology specialists, or simple volunteers.

A duty for volunteers

Their mission? Locate the 1,400 missing from their list. For Omer Bialer, an IT developer, like the others, it has become a duty. “For example, our teams scan photos of the missing, and look for matches with the help of artificial intelligence. We try to cross-check information from images published by Hamas or the Israelis”, he explains. The research center was improvised by Karine Nahon, a university professor and figure in the recent protest against the Netanyahu government.