Control and surveillance: What are American AI companies doing in Gaza?
The presence of Palantir and Dataminr in the new US military compound in Israel reveals how technology companies are benefiting from the situation.
Since mid-October 2025, around 200 US military personnel have been operating inside a large compound in southern Israel, located about 20 kilometers from the northernmost point of the Gaza Strip. The site is known as the Civil-Military Coordination Center.
The compound was established to implement the twenty-point peace plan announced by US President Donald Trump. The plan revolves around three main objectives: disarming Hamas, rebuilding Gaza, and creating conditions for what the US administration calls the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and statehood.
Although the UN Security Council approved the plan, no Palestinian party was included in the discussions about the future of the territory.
Meanwhile, two US companies specializing in AI-powered surveillance have become prominent inside the Civil-Military Coordination Center: Palantir and Dataminr. Their role highlights the growing influence of the tech sector in shaping post-war policies in Gaza, according to a report by Responsible Statecraft.
The outlet notes the presence of a field representative for the Maven platform inside the center. Maven is an AI system developed by Palantir that collects and analyzes large amounts of data from satellites, drones, wiretaps, and the Internet, integrating it into a single searchable platform used in military operations, including target identification and airstrike execution.
The system is described as an AI-enhanced battle platform, and Palantir boasts that its technologies shorten the kill chain from target detection to target engagement.
Recently, Palantir secured a 10 billion dollar contract to further develop Maven for the US Army.
Its presence in Israel has also increased since it entered a strategic partnership with the Israeli army in January 2024, despite widespread criticism regarding the crimes and abuses committed by Tel Aviv in Gaza, according to the same source.
Dataminr, for its part, uses artificial intelligence to analyze content from social media platforms such as X, providing what it calls real-time threat and risk assessment.
The company grew in prominence in the mid-2010s when it gave the FBI full and unrestricted access to X’s data to monitor any activity classified as criminal or terrorist.
It also enables the analysis of any user’s digital footprint and mapping of their social networks.
Dataminr was involved in monitoring Black Lives Matter protests during Trump’s first term, as well as pro-abortion rights demonstrations under former President Joe Biden. By 2025, its monitoring extended to content from pro-Palestinian activists in the United States.
According to Responsible Statecraft, the presence of Palantir and Dataminr inside the Civil-Military Coordination Center suggests that Israeli control over Gaza is not ending. Instead, it is deepening through a new layer of AI-driven surveillance and dominance, despite US rhetoric about a Palestinian state.
During the first six weeks of the Gaza truce, more than 340 Palestinians were killed either in Israeli airstrikes or by Israeli soldiers near the Yellow Line, the perimeter of areas under direct occupation, representing about 58 percent of the Strip.
At the security level, the United States will oversee the establishment of an International Stabilization Force composed of soldiers from various countries.
According to the same source, this force will rely on Maven and Dataminr technologies, which closely resemble Israeli tools such as AI targeting platforms used during the war and digital surveillance systems applied to Palestinians for years.
Information collected by the United States is often shared with Israel, as revealed in 2013 by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who described raw and unfiltered transfers of Palestinian data.
After October 7, 2023, such cooperation expanded, including aerial imagery, communications, and analytic reports that strengthened Israeli offensive capabilities.
Trump’s plan also includes a controversial provision to establish alternative secure communities in areas of Gaza under Israeli control. These would house tens of thousands of Palestinians in fully monitored enclosed complexes, with entry and exit controlled jointly with Israel’s Shin Bet based on assessments of individuals’ alleged ties to Hamas.
During the war, Israel’s AI tool Lavender marked thousands of Palestinians as targets based on secret algorithms. This system provides a preview of what might occur in these alternative complexes, especially as Maven and Dataminr will expand the ability of US and Israeli forces to track Palestinians, classify them, map their networks, and monitor their movements and communications.
According to Responsible Statecraft, what is unfolding in Gaza appears to be the establishment of a new occupation model in which American forces and tech companies administer the territory while Israel maintains intelligence and military control without needing a large direct military presence.
This model serves the interests of American companies that view Gaza as a live laboratory for developing AI-based surveillance and military targeting technologies.
