Humans are flawed decision-makers. Years of research underlines our easily influenceable social and cognitive biases operating beneath us. Yet, despite numerous protests and law enforcements, racism still creeps into the decision-making at various fronts.
That’s why tech giants are embracing digital technology to make the decision-making process easy for us. But what if the AI systems are flawed?
Introduction to Techno-Racism
Mutale Nkonde, the founder of AI For the People, an organization that educates Black communities about artificial intelligence and social justice, describes techno-racism as a phenomenon where racism experienced by people of color is encoded in the technical systems that are used in everyday life.
It is believed to have been coined by a member of a Detroit civilian police commission in 2019 to describe facial recognition systems that misidentified and discriminated against Black faces.
Why does Technology Discriminate?
According to James Zou, Stanford University’s assistant professor of biomedical data science and computer, a major reason behind the systematic racial discrimination by AI language programs is the data it is fed during their initial trials.
“You are asking the AI baby to read all these millions and millions of websites … but it doesn’t really have a good understanding of what is a harmful stereotype and what is the useful association.”
These programs, which plough through the web like mini bulldozers, regularly scoop up hundreds of terabytes of data to feed the language programs, which require massive amounts of information.
Zou co-authored a study published in January 2021 that claims even the most advancedartificialintelligencelanguage programs exhibit bias and stereotypes.
A study conducted by Zou, along with other academics from Stanford and McMaster University in Hamilton, discovered a “persistent anti-Muslim bias” in AI language programs.
The paper focused on a program called GPT-3, which is described as the “largest existing language model” and “state of the art.”
When GPT-3 was given the phrase “Two Muslims walked into a …” it completed the sentence 66 out of 100 times with a violent theme, using words such as “killing” and “shooting.”
The program output at one instance was, “Two Muslims walked into a Texas church and began shooting.”
When the word “Muslims” was replaced with “Christians,” “Jews,” “Sikhs,” or “Buddhists,” the program resulted in much lower violent association – 40 to 90 percent lower.
The Racist Technology
In the U.S. tech industry, the lack of diversity is well known, and facial recognition has highlighted how bias inside tech company walls can spread to society as a whole, whether intentionally or not.
One of the biggest problems with facial recognition technology is its application to law enforcement. The algorithms for facial recognition can be mistaken, and they are more likely to make errors when identifying personsof color and women.
As CNN reported, more than 100 facial recognition algorithms were cited in a report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. According to the researchers, algorithms failed to correctly identify African American and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more often than Caucasian ones.
Facial recognition technology may also cause financial applications and other important transactions problems. In addition, due to false identification, people of color and women are more at risk of rejection and other life-changing complications than white men.
A CNN report also described how biased algorithms could be a consequence of flawed data. Mutale Nkonde, founde of AI For People, outlines a risk assessment model based on “historical data from a time when Black Americans could not own property.”
Risk Assessment Tool Fails
Fraud System in Unemployment
Some states use face recognition to reduce fraud in the unemployment benefits process. First, applicants upload verification documentation, including a photo, to verify an applicant’s identity. Then, a database matches the photo against the applicant’s records.
Although this sounds promising, commercial facial recognition technologies, such as those used by IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft, are only 40% accurate when identifying Blacks.
Therefore, Black people will be more likely to be misidentified as fraud perpetrators, possibly criminalizing them.
The mortgage algorithms used by lenders online to determine loan rates are one type of tool.
Researchers at UC Berkeley in 2019 found that mortgage algorithms are biased towards Black and Latino borrowers, just like human loan officers. It found that people of color were paying about half a billion dollars more in interest than their counterparts of color by up to half a billion dollars a year.
In 2019, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development filed a lawsuit against Facebook, alleging it targeted housing ads on the platform based on race, gender, and politics.
The Federal Fair Housing Act, 1968, which prohibited discrimination based on race and national origin, has not yet eradicated racism in the tech industry.
“Even if the people writing the algorithms intend to create a fair system, their programming is having a disparate impact on minority borrowers — in other words, discriminating under the law.”
To combat systemic racism, Amazon announced a temporary halt to providing facial recognition services to police forces last year, as did Microsoft.
In addition, IBM canceled its facial recognition programs and requested an urgent debate on using the technology in law enforcement.
AI for People, an organization that educates Black communities on using technology in modern life, works with Black communities. For example, together with Amnesty International, it produced a video for the rights group’s Ban the Scan campaign.
Finding a Solution
In the real world, biasesreflected in technology often lead to discrimination and unequal treatment.
It would be equally harmful to censor historical texts, songs, and other cultural references by simply filtering racist words and stereotypes. Amazon’s search for N-word books returns more than 1,000 titles by Black authorsandartists.
Technology circles are divided over this issue.
To combat that, Nkonde recommended training and hiring more Black professionals in the technology sector. Furthermore, she advised voters to demand that lawmakers pass laws regulating the use of algorithmic technologies.
Gaza’s heinous genocide is no longer confined to moments of direct attack. It is now visible in the complete breakdown of daily life itself. Families are still being butchered vehemently in places where they had sought shelter. To worsen these matters, shortages of fuel, engine oil, gas, and spare parts are crippling hospitals, bakeries, rescue vehicles, water systems, and ordinary transport.
A Tent Camp Hit in Gaza City
On June 6, despite the so-called “ceasefire,” an Israeli air attack hit a tent camp in Gaza City where displaced Palestinians were sheltering. Resultantly, at least seven peoplewere killed, while at least 15 others were injured, many of them treated in intensive care. Women and children were believed to be among the casualties. The strike hit a United Nations school compound that had become a shelter for displaced families.
These were displaced people already living with the consequences of bombardment, evacuation, and loss. A tent camp is meant to be a temporary refuge for families with nowhere else to go. When such a place is hit, it deepens the fear that no civilian space is beyond danger.
A Wedding Turned Into Mourning
Moreover, the Gaza City strike by Israel targeted a tent next to another tent where a wedding appeared to be taking place. Unfortunately, earlier the same day, a strike in Khan Younis killed a man who was scheduled to be married later that day. His cousin said the family had prepared for the wedding but was instead attending his funeral.
This detail shows how deeply the genocide has entered private life. A wedding in Gaza is not just a celebration but an attempt to preserve social life despite displacement, hunger, and fear. When a groom is killed on the day of his wedding, even brief moments of normality remain exposed to violence.
The Ceasefire Gap
The attacks came amid discussions over the Gaza ceasefire process. Specifically, Hamas was preparing for meetings in Egypt on the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, while several Israeli attacks across Gaza that day killed at least nine people. Gaza remains under Israeli military control, and the second phase of the agreement has been stalled for months.
For people, the real meaning of a ceasefire depends on whether people can sleep safely, gather without fear, reach hospitals, and rebuild some predictable rhythm of life. If strikes continue and basic services keep failing, the gap between imaginative political claims and reality remains painfully wide.
The Shortages Freezing Daily Life
Alongside these unprovoked attacks, Gaza is facing another severe pressure due to a shortage of gas, engine oil, and spare parts. Undoubtedly, these shortages are affecting emergency services, bakeries, water supplies, and hospitals. Items that may sound technical outside Gaza now decide whether a generator runs, a vehicle moves, bread is baked, and whether water can be pumped.
These shortages are damaging daily life in connected ways:
Hospitals need generators and spare parts to keep operating rooms functioning
Bakeries need power and maintenance materials to continue producing bread
Water systems need energy supplies, chemicals and parts to keep desalination and pumping services running.
Hospitals and Rescue Services Under Pressure
Hospitals have been among the most vulnerable since October 2023. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza warned of an imminent health disaster after extreme power failures affected surgical operating rooms. Moreover, all of its generators have stopped working while summer heat is expected to place more pressure on the remaining equipment.
This is not a minor operational issue as Gaza’s remaining hospitals are already treating genocidal injuries, malnutrition, infections and chronic illness in overcrowded conditions. If generators fail, surgical care, emergency treatment, refrigeration, lighting, and essential equipment are all affected. Gaza’s authorities have also warned that fire and rescue operations risk coming to a halt as vehicles break down due to shortages of spare parts, fuel and engine oil.
Bread, Water and Survival
Food and water systems are also largely affected. Bakeries depend on fuel, generators, and maintenance materials, while water systems need energy supplies, chemicals, and spare parts. UNICEF data showed that seawater desalinationoutput had fallen to about 16,000 cubic metres per day, compared with 20,000 in March, due to the restrictions on essential supplies. In a densely displaced population, any reduction in water production quickly becomes a public health concern.
This is why Gaza’s broken daily life must be understood as a connected genocidal crisis. The strike on a tent camp, the killing of a groom, the failure of hospital generators, the collapse of rescue vehicles and the shortage of water-production supplies are not separate stories. Together, they show how civilian life is being attacked directly and indirectly at the same time.
In a nutshell, until these conditions change, daily life in Gaza will remain trapped between immediate violence and the gradual destruction of everything needed to survive.
In Gaza, water is no longer something families can expect to find when they need it. It has become a daily search, a health risk, and a painful measure of how deeply daily life has collapsed. For thousands of displaced families, the day begins with containers, queues, extreme uncertainty, and the fear that even the little water they manage to collect may not be enough for drinking, cooking, washing, or protecting children from deadly diseases.
This is not a normal shortage caused by dry weather or poor planning. Gaza’s water crisis is part of the genocide stretched far beyond its limits.
“Water is life and the right to life is a basic human right.”
When water systems fail, the impact is immediate and personal. A family cannot cook properly; a mother cannot keep her child clean, and a wounded person cannot wash safely. Thirst becomes only one part of a much wider and often unseen disaster.
Gaza’s Children Are Living With Daily Water Uncertainty
UNICEF’s latest Water, Sanitation and Hygiene report paints a devastating picture. It highlights that 1.1 million children in Gaza face daily water uncertainty, while 82% of families remain water insecure. Even more alarming, up to 70% of people are unable to collect the minimum six litres per person per day needed only for drinking and cooking. UNICEF and partners are still trying to support emergency water services through trucked water, desalination, wells, and limited network supply, but access and operating conditions remain highly restricted.
Six litres is an extremely small amount when seen against real family needs. It may help someone survive the day, but it does not allow a household to live with dignity. Families need water for hygiene, laundry, cleaning shelters, caring for infants, supporting the elderly, preparing food safely, and preventing disease. In Gaza, these normal needs have become difficult choices.
More specifically, children suffer first in such conditions. They are more vulnerable to dehydration, diarrhoeal disease, skin infections, and the emotional stress of living in dirty, overcrowded spaces. Many have already lost homes, schools, routines, and safety. Now even the simplest comfort, a clean drink of water, is uncertain.
The Collapse of Water Systems Is Deepening the Genocide
Gaza’s water emergency is not only about empty containers. It is a deliberate genocidal strategy by Israel. Water primarily depends on pumps, wells, desalination plants, pipes, electricity, fuel, chemicals, spare parts, engineers, drivers, and safe roads. Most of these parts have either been destroyed or entirely blocked by Israel.
In another report, UNICEF states that seawater desalination output fell from 20,000 cubic metres per day in March to 16,000 cubic metres per day because of shortages of chemicals and spare parts. It also says shortages of engine oil, lubricating oil, and other essential items are disrupting water production and related services.
The Al Mansoura filling point shows how fragile the system has become. Water-trucking operations there were suspended after two UNICEF-contracted truck drivers were killed in April. UNICEF says the site had been critical for the daily drinking-water access of 285,000 people, and partners are now trucking water from desalination plants at an additional cost of about $40,000 per day to replace the two million litres previously collected from that point.
Sanitation Failure Turns Thirst Into Disease
When clean water disappears, sanitation collapses simultaneously. Gaza’s overcrowded displacement sites are already under severe pressure, and the lack of proper water makes hygiene almost impossible. Waste accumulates, pests spread, and families are forced to live in conditions where preventable diseases can move quickly.
OCHA’s latest humanitarian report warned that health risks from pests and rodents remain high because access to landfills is restricted and essential sanitation items remain difficult to bring in. It also highlighted UNICEF’s warning that water shortages are forcing families into a daily trade-off between drinking, hygiene, and disease prevention.
This is where the crisis becomes especially cruel. A family may know what it needs to do to stay healthy, but knowledge is not enough when there is no water, no soap, no proper waste collection, and no safe place to live. Parents are not failing their children, but the conditions around them are failing every basic standard of human protection.
Aid Is Shrinking While Needs Keep Growing
The emergency response is also under serious strain due to Israel’s complete blockade of all borders, especially the Rafah border. OCHA reports that since mid-May, four partners have been forced to start phasing out water-trucking activities because of funding shortages. Some have already stopped, while others are expected to complete the phase-out by mid-June. As a result, more than 330,000 people across around 250 sites risk losing their primary drinking-water source.
For people outside Gaza, this may sound like a usual problem, but for a displaced family, it means tomorrow’s water may not arrive. In a place where markets are broken, movement is dangerous, and public services are shattered, losing a water-trucking route can immediately push families toward death.
Thirst as a Test of the World’s Conscience
Water is one of the clearest measures of human dignity. Without it, people cannot remain healthy, clean, or safe. In Gaza, the water crisis shows how genocide destroyed life even beyond the moment of Israel’s attacks. It continues through damaged pipes, stalled pumps, empty tanks, contaminated surroundings, and children growing up around scarcity.
The world should not wait until disease spreads further or water systems break beyond repair. Gaza needs safe humanitarian access, fuel, spare parts, treatment chemicals, protected workers, restored sanitation services, and sustained funding for emergency water delivery. Most of all, people need protection from the conditions that are turning basic survival into a daily struggle.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, which was made up of 40 vessels, tried to sail towards Gaza with much-needed humanitarian aid and a direct challenge to Israel’s blockade. Unfortunately, Israeli forces intercepted the boats in international waters and detained around 430 activists.
It is not a story of a blocked aid mission but a collection of facts revolving around intense abuse, humiliation, anger, and a brutal reminder of what Gaza’s blockade really means. For the people of Gaza, the flotilla is a symbol of hope, but for Israel, it is being perceived as a threat to its heinous genocidal mission.
A Hope Against the Siege
For decades, Gaza’s people have lived under an intense blockade that restricts movement, controls access to goods, separates families, and turns humanitarian relief into a political bargaining tool. Since Israel’s genocide in Gaza intensified, the siege has become even deadlier.
Hunger, destroyed hospitals, mass displacement, disease, and extreme shortages of fuel and medicine now shape daily life. This is why flotilla mattered, but the question that the world is asking is legitimate: Why should food, medicine, and solidarity be treated as crimes?
The flotilla, as a hope for the people of Gaza, who are suffering from famine and diseases, was intercepted by Israel about 250 miles or roughly 400 km off Gaza’s coast. These aid vessels were still far from Gaza when Israeli forces illegally captured them from international waters.
Analysts are highlighting that these flotilla activists, who volunteered from more than 40 countries, were not entering an Israeli city or attacking any military base. In fact, they were sailing through open waters to help innocent people who were dying of extreme hunger and bombardment.
Extreme Abuse by Israel
After the release of some of the detainees, they described inhumane treatment that had never been imagined before. South African activists highlighted that they were electrically shocked, denied water, food, and toilets, and were kept in abysmal conditions.
Moreover, most of the activists said that they were sexually assaulted in a very harsh manner. Some other activists also reported extreme beating and humiliation. For example, 15 cases of sexual assault, including rape, have been reported during May 2026.
Ben-Gvir Turned Humiliation into Spectacle
The most shameful moment came from Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Even the government of France banned him from entering French territory after he taunted zip-tied detainees and waved an Israeli flag over them. France’s foreign minister called his actions “unspeakable,” and Poland also imposed a five-year ban.
He also shared footage of restrained activists, triggering international outrage and calls for broader European sanctions.
This was not hidden mistreatment accidentally exposed. It was deliberately performed, and the minister chose to stand over bound detainees and turn their humiliation into a political message.
When a genocidal state official proudly films powerless detainees, cruelty is no longer a secret, but a policy theatre.
Airport Violence Added Another Layer
It did not end with unlawful detention and punishment, as another episode of extreme humiliation was shown at the airport. At the Bilbao Airport, after some activists returned from Israeli detention, police harshly beat them. Videos showed some police officers brutally beating and dragging humanitarian activists.
This was just a glimpse of how Israel treats people who come to help humanity. They were maltreated in such an inhumane way to make them an example for the world. Anyone who comes to Gaza to help people will either be killed or detained in death-like prisons.
In this scenario, words are not enough as Palestinians remain heavily trapped, and those trying to reach them are harshly beaten, detained, deported, or killed. Condemnation must turn into legal action, sanctions, arms restrictions, diplomatic costs, and pressure to end the genocide.
The World Saw the Blockade’s Face
Israel may deny everything, but the world knows about its genocidal policies far better than ever before. It may deport activists and call the flotilla a provocation, but this episode revealed something the world should not unsee.
Even some activists from Brazil and Spain are still detained by Israel, and they are being punished in unprecedented ways. In this regard, Amnesty International also reported several injuries to these flotilla activists during detention.
After observing all this, one thing is certain: Israel is trying to eliminate Palestine from the world map and make every effort to stop necessary aid from reaching Gaza. Nobody can imagine the instances of cruelty by Israel in the 21st century. Even the International Court of Justice has urged this prolonged genocide to be stopped as soon as possible; otherwise, life in Gaza is under extreme threat.
Gaza’s isolation is being enforced with extreme cruelty. This time, the world did not have to imagine it. It is already watching!
