company Portland, Oregon, which specializes in AI targeting drones, ships large quantities of supplies to Israeli military contractors, according to cargo data reviewed by The Intercept. The shipment raises the possibility that small technology companies in the Pacific Northwest helped Israeli forces attack people in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere.
Sightline Intelligence, which focuses on AI video processing, has shipped hardware to Israeli weapons giant Elbit Systems at least 10 times since 2024, according to researchers from the Motion Research Division, the group that first obtained the documents.
Activist protests have erupted in Portland following revelations that local businesses are doing business with Israel.
“We really want our city council members to help us follow up on what Sightline is doing,” said Olivia Katobi, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America of Portland and an organizer with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. “Are they producing these products here in our city? What is their relationship with Israel’s Elbit Systems?”
Drones have become a key part of Israel’s military strategy and can launch deadly attacks without endangering its own forces, said Abdullah F. of the Movement Research Unit, who asked that his last name be omitted due to the sensitivity of his research.
“They are involved in many civilian deaths, and they are also an important part of the surveillance structure,” he said.
10 pieces shipped
Researchers at the Movement Research Unit, which collects information on left-wing organizations and activities, said they had pinpointed 10 shipments from Sightline to Elbit Systems in Karmiel, Israel. The Intercept was able to independently confirm the dates and corresponding cargo weights of the shipments from Portland to Israel.
Six of the shipments went through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, and four went through Newark International Airport in New Jersey. (Sightline, its parent companies Akron Technologies and Elbit Systems did not respond to requests for comment.)
Using commercial data extracted from the cargo manifest, researchers discovered that the cargo contained an SLA-3000-OEM embedded video processing board and related components that are part of a surveillance system that can be used for target recognition.
“We can all imagine what kind of decisions will be made based on that algorithm.”
The company says in marketing materials that the technology can quickly identify people and vehicles on the ground and classify them as civilians, military targets, armed targets, or people willing or unwilling to surrender. Assign a percentage to the confidence level of these classifications.
“Sightline provides applications that allow unmanned vehicles to autonomously classify targets, and these video processing boards are a critical part of that,” Abdullah said. “It allows for low latency, very fast video processing, so the drone operator can see in real time, ‘94 percent of this person is unarmed,’ or ‘75 percent of this person is military.’ So we can all imagine what kind of decisions are going to be made based on that algorithm.”
Abdullah declined to elaborate on the investigation methodology, citing concerns that companies could take steps to avoid identifying future shipments. However, studies using these techniques have been demonstrated in the past. The shipments identified through the group’s methodology were confirmed through a parliamentary inquiry in the United Kingdom, and in both cases involved shipments of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, and are part of the basis of an ongoing lawsuit in Belgium against FedEx for undeclared shipments of weapons parts.
A similar technique was used to expose nitrocellulose (an explosive ingredient used in ammunition) shipped from JFK Airport to Israel in May 2025, as first reported by The Intercept and Irish investigative website The Ditch.
Targeting Israel
Founded in 2007 as Sightline Applications, Sightline Intelligence is based in Portland with offices in Hood River, Oregon, and Brisbane, Australia. Until Friday, the company was owned by Boston-based private equity firm Artemis, which last week announced it had sold the company to Akron Technologies for an undisclosed amount.
Sightline specializes in target recognition and touts its low-latency video processing as an essential tool in modern military arsenals. The company has not disclosed any transactions with Elbit Systems, a prominent target of the global BDS movement. However, Sightline lists FMS Aerospace, a company that works with domestic arms contractors, as an “international partner” on its website. Meanwhile, FMS Aerospace names the Israeli Air Force as a partner, along with Elbit Systems and other companies in the Israeli military-industrial complex.
Israel’s use of military and commercial quadcopter drones has been extensively documented by journalists and human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Euromed Human Rights Monitor. Although there is no publicly available information about whether the hardware or software developed by Sightline Intelligence has been used in the field by the Israeli military, Abdullah said recent photos included in intelligence documents hacked from the cellphones of high-ranking generals appear to at least indicate that Israel has tested the technology.
The photo, published online by the Handara Hacking Team, an organization believed to operate from Iran, shows Israeli General Helj Halevi and six other men in military uniform with a laptop screen visible. A map with marks is displayed on the left side of the screen, and information displays and toggle displays appear to be displayed on the right column. (Abdullah, who pointed the image to The Intercept, cautioned that he could not independently verify it.) The display is similar to the user interface of the Sightline targeting program that the company has posted online.
“On my laptop, I can see something very similar to Sightline’s geospatial intelligence planning tool,” Abdullah said. “The long blue line at the front of the screen appears to match the planning tool. Also, some blue toggles on the side appear to match as well. There is also a very similar goal distance bar in the bottom right of the screen.”
He added: “While we cannot definitively say that this is the same platform, this strongly suggests that this software was being deployed or tested in an Israeli military environment.”
portland protests
In Portland, protesters opposing Sightline’s business ties to Israel spoke at a City Council meeting last week and later rallied by the dozens in front of the company’s headquarters. (A spokesperson for Portland Mayor Keith Wilson declined to comment.)
One item in particular in Sightline’s promotional materials caught the attention of local activists. The company’s website features what appears to be surveillance images taken from above the aerial tram stop at Oregon Health & Science University, the city’s public research university.
The image originally appeared in a video the company posted online last June. However, the video has since been updated with several seconds cut out to remove the image of the tram stop.
“I think people would be outraged to learn that this company was potentially training technology to identify us as civilians in Portland, without our consent, and then using that technology to kill people in the Gaza Strip,” said BDS organizer Katobi.
