Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1527639
11 EDITORIAL maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 9 OCTOBER 2024 WHAT happened on 7 October 2023 at the Nova dance festival and neigh- bouring villages in Israel was barbar- ic. No young person who was having fun at that festival should have ex- pected to see their friends massacred in cold blood; raped; humiliated and taken hostage. What Hamas militants did on that day was despicable and should be condemned outright. It is hard to believe, indeed shock- ing, that one year later scores of hos- tages taken by Hamas are still trapped inside Gaza; their fate unknown. And yet as we condemn Hamas's ac- tions and affirm Israel's right to de- fend itself we cannot forget the many more October 7s that have been hap- pening in Gaza since then. The Israeli reaction has been dis- proportionate, brutal and murder- ous. Just as it was very wrong to have 1,200 innocent Israelis killed in cold blood, it was equally wrong to have more than 40,000 Palestinians killed beneath the rubble of their homes, on their streets, in schools and hospitals where they sought shelter. The Palestinians in Gaza have suf- fered far too much. The enclave, on- ly just bigger than Malta, is besieged, unliveable and will likely remain so for many years. For every Israeli mother crying the death of her son or daughter at the hands of Hamas there are 33 Palestin- ian mothers crying the death of their children at the hands of Israeli mili- tary action. For every Israeli father anxiously waiting to discover the fate of their child kidnapped by Hamas, there are scores of Palestinian fathers anxious- ly waiting to see if their son or daugh- ter is still alive under the rubble of a bombed residential building. There is a lot of pain and suffering on both sides and yet it is not war that will solve this. Incredibly, Hamas continues to spo- radically shoot rockets into Israel until this very day. These actions are reckless and counterproductive for the Palestinian cause but they go to show that Israel's war goal to com- pletely eliminate Hamas has failed. The militant group has been severe- ly weakened militarily and politically but not decimated. In these circumstances, prolonging the Gaza siege and genocide is noth- ing short of pure madness coming from an Israeli far-right government whose apparent aim is to permanent- ly occupy the whole of Palestine. Only an immediate ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostag- es and the unrestricted delivery of humanitarian supplies will suffice to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis alike. At the same time Israel and Hez- bollah in Lebanon must stop the cross-border skirmishes and bomb- ings. Lebanon must not become a sec- ond Gaza. Just as Israel has a duty not to turn Lebanon into a failed state so does Hezbollah have a duty to desist from attacking Israel. 12 months after October 7, the Mid- dle East is like a tinder keg about to explode. If it does, the result will on- ly mean more suffering, more pain, more mothers and fathers crying their dead children, more destruction of buildings, communities and lives, more anger and hate. People living 'from the river to the sea', irrespective of who they are and what nationality they hold or aspire to hold, deserve much better. They deserve to live in peace and security as dignified human beings. They deserve a better life and leaders on all sides have a duty to make this happen now and not in some distant future. The many October 7s maltatoday MaltaToday, MediaToday Co. Ltd, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 MANAGING EDITOR: SAVIOUR BALZAN EXECUTIVE EDITOR: KURT SANSONE EDITOR: PAUL COCKS Tel: (356) 21 382741-3, 21 382745-6 Website: www.maltatoday.com.mt E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt could not be reasonably expect- ed by the data subject. Furthermore, from a legal and practical point of view, what is interesting about the Clearview AI cases is that the company re- jects the Authorities' claim that EU jurisdiction is established over a company established and offering its services only outside of the EU. In fact Clearview AI did not engage with the investi- gations by the EU DPAs, and has refused to pay the fine or com- ply with the imposed sanctions, highlighting a general weakness of EU digital law - the inability to enforce legislative require- ments or decisions by authori- ties against companies outside of the jurisdiction. This remains an outstanding issue. Like many other developments in the field of Artificial Intel- ligence, the matters raised are complex. Beyond identification, AI-powered facial recognition systems can also be developed and deployed as classification and inferential systems, for ex- ample to infer and classify ac- cording to race. The associated risks may vary from the leaking of private information, to con- texts of deployment severely detrimental to fundamental hu- man rights. We would be well advised to thread with care. Beyond identification, AI-powered facial recognition systems can also be developed and deployed as classification and inferential systems, for example to infer and classify according to race.