The use of drones by several African countries in their fight against armed groups is causing significant harm to civilians, according to a new report. More than 943 civilians have been killed in at least 50 incidents across six African countries from November 2021 to November 2024, according to the report by Drone Wars UK. The report, titled Death on Delivery, reveals that strikes regularly fail to distinguish between civilians and combatants in their operations. Experts told Al Jazeera that the death toll is likely only the tip of the iceberg because many countries run secretive drone campaigns. As drones rapidly become the weapon of choice for governments across the continent, what are the consequences for civilians in conflict zones?

The Israeli military's reported use of an untested and undisclosed artificial intelligence-powered database to identify targets for its bombing campaign in Gaza has alarmed human rights and technology experts who said it could amount to "war crimes". The Israeli-Palestinian publication 972 Magazine and Hebrew-language media outlet Local Call reported recently that the Israeli army was isolating and identifying thousands of Palestinians as potential bombing targets using an AI-assisted targeting system called Lavender. "That database is responsible for drawing up kill lists of as many as 37,000 targets," Al Jazeera's Rory Challands, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, said on Thursday. The unnamed Israeli intelligence officials who spoke to the media outlets said Lavender had an error rate of about 10 percent. "But that didn't stop the Israelis from using it to fast-track the identification of often low-level Hamas operatives in Gaza and bombing them," Challands said.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. A possible drone attack may have sparked an explosion that struck three oil tankers in Abu Dhabi and another fire at an extension of Abu Dhabi International Airport on Monday that killed three people and wounded six, police said. Abu Dhabi police identified the dead as two Indian nationals and one Pakistani. It did not identify the wounded, who police said suffered minor or moderate wounds.

ATAQ, YEMEN – The United States has waged a drone war in Yemen for 16 years, trying to suppress al-Qaida's branch there. But the campaign has had a hidden cost: civilians cut down by the drones' missiles. There is no comprehensive count of civilian deaths because of the difficulty of confirming identities and allegiances of those killed. But in an examination of drone strikes this year alone, AP found that at least 30 of the dead likely did not belong to al-Qaida. That is around a third of all those killed in drone strikes so far in 2018.

This 2018 handout image provided by the Ali family, shows a photo of Ammer Ali, in Yemen. A drone struck a car carrying Ali who was returning to Marib with a relative after dropping his family at a house of relatives. Nearly 70 kilometers from Marib, at 3:00 p.m. the drone struck the car and killed the Ali the other driver survived. This 2018 handout image provided by the Sarima family, shows a photo of Mohammed Abu Sarima, who was killed in a drone strike, in Yemen. The Pentagon confirmed a drone strike on the same day in the province of Bayda, saying they were targeting al-Qaida.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Today, the Obama administration revealed new information that sheds light on the reality of modern warfare, the number of civilians accidentally killed in U.S. airstrikes. JOHN YANG: Today's release is the first time the White House has said how many terrorists and innocent civilians it believes have been killed by airstrikes, including by drones. Between 2009 and 2015, the administration says it launched 473 airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Africa. It estimates that as many as 2,581 combatants, and as many as 116 noncombatants were killed. Now, these numbers do not include airstrikes in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, what the administration calls areas of active hostilities. A new executive order has also been issued, with the aim of decreasing the number of civilian deaths.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama acknowledged Friday that "civilians were killed that shouldn't have been" in past U.S. drone strikes, but said the administration is now "very cautious" about striking where women or children are present. Obama was asked at a news conference about an increase in the number of people targeted in drone strikes against extremists in Libya, Syria, Somalia and elsewhere. "In the past, there was legitimate criticism that the legal architecture around the use of drone strikes wasn't as precise as it should have been," Obama said. "There's no doubt that civilians were killed that shouldn't have been." He added that over the last several years, the administration has worked to prevent civilian deaths.

President Barack Obama is acknowledging that "civilians have been killed that shouldn't have been" in past U.S. drone strikes, but says the administration is now "very cautious" about taking strikes where women or children are present. Asked at a news conference about an increase in the number of people targeted in several drone strikes against extremist targets in Libya, Syria and Somalia, Obama said the "legal architecture" around the use of drone strikes in the past hasn't been precise. But in the last several years, he says, the administration has worked hard to prevent civilian deaths. He says the U.S. has to take responsibility when it is not acting appropriately. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.