Tech for Genocide: Palantir’s Role in the Pager Attacks

By Al-Akhbar’s Lebanon Desk – Dec 15, 2025

“We’ve never supplied our products to enemies. We proudly support the US government. I am proud that we are supporting Israel in every way we can.” – Palantir co-founder Alex Karp

Palantir Technologies has been involved in the Israeli military’s regional operations from Gaza to Lebanon and beyond, according to revelations in a new biography of CEO Alex Karp. In The Philosopher in the Valley: Alex Karp, Palantir, and the Rise of the Surveillance State, New York Times journalist Michael Steinberger details how the US-based company’s software played a direct role in the deadly operations following October 7th 2023, namely the Operation Grim Beeper in Lebanon in 2024.

On September 17th-18th 2024, Israel detonated booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies across homes, shops, and workplaces. Israel claimed the devices belonged exclusively to Hezbollah members, but the explosions largely struck civilians including children, killing at least 42 people and injuring more than 3,400. Survivors suffered severe and life-changing injuries to the hands, face, and eyes.

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“The company’s technology was deployed by the Israelis during military operations in Lebanon in 2024 that decimated Hezbollah’s top leadership. It was also used in Operation Grim Beeper,” confirmed Steinberger.

Following October 7, both the Shin Bet and Israeli army urgently sought Palantir’s tools. “The demand for Palantir’s assistance was so great that the company dispatched a team of engineers from London to help get Israeli users online,” Steinberger said, prompting the US-based AI company to “rent a second floor in the building that housed its Tel Aviv office to accommodate the intelligence analysts who needed tutorials.”

According to Steinberger, the company’s software was deployed by the Israeli military beyond Lebanon, notably in “several raids in Gaza” in which captives were freed. Palantir also leveraged the US military’s Project Maven to help repel “large-scale Iranian missile attacks on Israel in October 2024 and June 2025”.

The involvement of big tech companies in warfare has raised international alarm. Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, has cited the Palantir as a collaborator in the Gaza genocide in a report released on July 2nd 2025. “Companies are no longer merely implicated in occupation – they may be embedded in an economy of genocide,” said the report.

(al-akhbar)