Gaza Bot 2067

Khan Younis

In Gaza, under the weight of Israel’s pervasive AI surveillance, armed resistance had ended decades ago. By 2067, to live in Gaza was to be watched constantly, all while trying to navigate the labyrinth of the territory's thirty-two thousand residency regulations.

From her second-floor bedroom window, Gaza resident 9121 watched a young man pluck an orange from his family’s tree. He peeled it carefully, offering half to a girl who smiled next to him. For a moment, resident 9121 even envied them sharing a moment of joy, savoring something as simple as a piece fruit.

Then, a siren screamed. A Guardian Bot came into view, rapidly approaching the couple. “Violation of regulation #549—distribution of an unregistered agricultural product.”

They both froze, the orange slipping from the girl’s hand and rolling to the hot pavement. Resident 9121 could watch, or she could look away and pretend it didn’t affect her world. She drew the curtains, her stomach knotting into a familiar knot of dread and guilt.

Music drifted down from the apartment above, the words familiar:

"Dove in the dust, fly through the wire, carry our dreams where the stars climb higher…"

The song ended, then began again. She knew the words by heart. Music was their sanctuary, the last place they could express their thoughts and dreams, through metaphor.

In the corner of the room, her younger brother stacked toy blocks, oblivious to the world outside. What kind of future could she offer him? She wondered if, after he grew up, he would ever know a day without fear.

Tel Aviv

In the Knesset’s gleaming chamber, Netanyahu III, the eleventh Prime Minister of Israel, stood at the podium and addressed the world. “Gaza is an oasis of freedom,” he declared. “Our security forces have withdrawn. Thanks to the benevolence of Israel, the two-state solution has become a reality. We have assisted Gaza's residents in creating an orderly, law-abiding paradise—a flourishing democracy that respects the rights of every individual.” The American delegation clapped like trained seals.

Across town, in an eastern suburb of Tel Aviv, Noam Chamdar, AI analyst, killed the livestream. Netanyahu’s glib lies hurt his ears. He chewed his now tasteless gum, and went back to fast forwarding hundreds of hours of FPV footage, looking for glitches in IDF Guardian Bots’ behaviour. The Guardian Bots “protected Gaza’s safety” or enforced Israel’s rule through brute force, depending on one’s perspective.

Regardlenss, his job was to detect and patch their flaws, and feed new data into their large language models. LLMs were a tricky beast. No matter how much training they have, there's always a gap for the unexpected to slip through.

On his monitor, he watached a Guardian named Idan strode through the Khan Younis’ market, its titanium foot crushing a grandmother’s ankle as she scrambled to get out of the way. She howled in pain. Noam’s cursor hovered over the delete key. Guardian Analytics would dismiss the clip as a normal anomaly. The IDF would call her a liar or worse, jail her for spreading “misinformation” if she reported it. He pressed delete, erasing her pain from his records.

He thought about watching Ghost in the Grid, after work, a light holo-drama that would take his mind off of the horror he watched all day. He spat out his gum, its taste now bitter, and had a sip of his yuzu infused sparkling water.

Khan Younis

Resident 9121 walked cautiously through Shafan Park, with five QR codes pinned to her chest: work permit, travel permit, caretaker permit, education permit, volunteer permit. Each one gave her some protection, proof that she belonged. On the surface, she was a law-abiding resident of Gaza and complying with rules was essential for survival.

She trailed a Guardian Bot at a safe distance, studying its patterns. She was inspired to do this after meeting Resident 9987 in a dating chatroom. Learning about the bots could help other Gazans, he said, and as a Gaza Volunteer it would be safer for her than for others.

In the market, she watched bakers roll flatbreads from UN donated flour, and vendors hawk hydroponically grown figs. Her eyes darted to a boy, no older than fifteen, who ran through the crowd, with a soccer ball tucker under his arm. His toe caught on a cracked pavement slab, and the ball dropped from his hands and bouncing wildly across the ground until it struck the Guardian Bot’s chassis with a dull thud.

The bot’s swiveled, scanning the boy’s QR codes. “Resident 27,354, you have violated regulation #2198—no physical assaults on a public security device.”

The boy’s face drained of color. “Oh my God,” the boy stammered, frozen.

“You have three seconds to file an appeal.”

“What?” the boy's voice cracked.

The Guardian’s tentacles lashed out, binding the boy's arms in industrial strength Velcro. “I am now detaining you for violating Gaza residency regulations.”

The boy struggled to free himself.

“Resisting arrest is a violation of Regulation #52.” A needle jabbed his thigh, and the boy went limp. The bot lifted his body like a rag doll and carried him away.

Resident 9121 watched from a distance, cataloguing every word, every move. She’s been studying the system for months. His parents would get a tracking number, a formality to be able to follow his processing through Israel’s endless detainment centers and retraining programs.

She understood the bot’s logic – trained on simulations—rigid but predictable. Watching Israeli TV, she had already slowly begun to unravel their legal maze, a brutal but coherent system of regulations and court processes which were meant to keep power in the hands of the powerful.

Pretending to have no fear, despite her legs trembling, she held her head up high and approached the bot.

“I would like to make a UN Freedom of Information request. What is the detainee’s age and identity number?”

The bot’s lens whirred, scanning her volunteer permit. “You have violated regulation #8343—approaching within one meter of a security bot. You have three seconds to file an appeal.”

“I appeal as this is. A special situation involving human aid assistance as a licensed volunteer.” Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, but she held its gaze, unblinking.

After a pause, the boy replied, “Appeal granted.” The bot relayed the boy’s details in a mechanical voice.

Her volunteer permit had saved her. It had helped her countless times before. To obtain her permit, she had played the part for visiting UN delegations and American congresspeople, smiling on their tours of Israel’s Potemkin villages in Gaza. “Thanks to Israel, I’m exploring my gender identity and studying robotics,” she’d say, her script well memorized despite not spending a day in school in her life.

She knew someone in Tel Aviv would be watching. This encounter would be an outlier in the data.

That night, the ground shook, another drone strike–maybe a satellite dish or an unlicensed toy factory. A necessary operation against “terrorist infrastructure,” they would say.

Tel Aviv

Netanyahu III's face dominated Tel Aviv’s skyline, projected on massive screens spread throughout the city as he gave his daily address. His family dynasty’s grip was ironclad.

Netanyahu I had dodged prison by clinging to power. Netanyahu II clung to his family’s wealth by purging dissent. When intelligence bugs revealed 38 Knesset members would vote against him, the members were put on a “peace delegation” flight to Iran that conveniently crashed in the desert. Now, Netanyahu III ruled as dictator, unanimous votes were called a “democratic mandate”. Few remembered that Julius Caesar and the following Roman rulers were not known as ‘Emperors’ in their time, but used the older democratic titles of the republic to cloak their power.

Noam listened, sickened by Netanyahu III’s endless self-justifying rhetoric—virtuous-sounding slogans disconnected from the reality he saw daily.

The broadcast shifted to an AI enhanced vision of Gaza: lush hydroponic gardens, sparkling water reclamation towers, children laughing in pristine playgrounds. The narrator proclaimed, “Gaza, 2067: A beacon of progress, prosperity, and peace under Israel’s benevolent stewardship.” Smiling Gazans waved at Guardian Bots, and a young woman praised the bots for “keeping our streets safe.”

After work, Noam, using three layers of encryption on the dark web, leaked grainy footage of the boy detained for bumping a Guardian with a soccer ball to an overseas whistleblower forum. It was his small act of defiance.

Then he logged into his usual chatroom under his alias, “Resident 9987.”

Outside, the world saw paradise. From his privileged position inside, he saw their lives ground into dust.

Khan Younis

She was detail-oriented to the point of obsession. Resident 9121 watched the crowd of children passing a Guardian Bot, flashing their QR codes. “Scan it! Scan it!” they chanted. She remembered the carefree days of childhood, before she turned 13. After that, her friends began to be taken away and she learned that survival meant collaboration and following regulations.

Banners proclaimed, ‘Israel stands for the ‘rule of law’. After a century of shifting rhetoric, one thing remained the same: they would never be citizens of Israel, nor would they have their own nation.

A Guardian’s siren wailed. “Violation detected: Unauthorized vehicle use.”

A boy on a scooter froze, eyes wide as saucers. He looked 13 or 14.

“Resident 34,980, you have violated Code 17-B. You have three seconds to file an appeal.”

The boy’s mother rushed forward, worry etched in her face. “He’s just a child!”

The bot’s head swiveled. “Public dissent is a violation. Resident 32,812, you have 72 hours of restricted movement. Report to curfew immediately.”

The crowd fell silent. The mother’s voice rose. “I’m his mother! You can’t punish me for that!”

“Verbal resistance,” the Guardian said, unwavering. “Resident 32,812 you have seven days of labor in the waste reclamation plant.” Restraints snapped around her wrists, and her shoulder slumped, defeated. The Guardian wasn’t programmed for emotional cruelty, but its logic was unrelenting, embedded with a directive: enforce regulations at all costs.

Resident 9987 had told her, now is the time.

She stepped forward, pretending the robot’s overwhelming strength didn’t scare her.

“I would like to file a UN Freedom of Information request,” she said, loud and clear.

The Guardian scanned her, its laser lingering on her volunteer permit. It would deem her a low threat. “Please maintain a distance of two meters,” it cautioned, too late. She spotted its memory port under a flap, exactly where resident 9987 had described it to her. She lunged forward and inserted the memory stick into the Guardian’s port.

It was a reckless move, probably a Mossad trap, but what did she have to lose? On the memory stick was a two-factor encryption code resident 9987 had given her. A green light flashed. Thousands of simulated interactions flooded the Guardian’s neural network, their training weights designed to override its previous programming.

The regulations were a brutal machine, but like many Israeli systems, they followed hard logic. She couldn’t share her knowledge of them with every Gazan resident, but the Guardian Bot could.

When the green light went dark, the Guardian stepped back. “I have maintained two-meters,” it said in a calm voice. It turned to the mother it detained. “You would like to file an appeal, yes?”

“Yes,” she whispered, stunned.

“Exemption 3438 might be a good option. Would you like to proceed?”

“Yes.”

“Appeal accepted. You are free to go. Have a nice day.”

“You too,” the mother said, her voice trembling with disbelief.

Resident 9121 lips curved into a small, secret smile. For the first time, she dared to imagine her brother seeing the river, like the dreams she’d buried deep. Maybe, just maybe, the cracks in the machine would become wide enough to slip through.