Two weeks ago, a ceasefire was declared in Gaza, after more than a year of incalculable suffering and loss-of-life. The scenes that have followed inside Gaza have underlined the deep resilience of the Palestinian population, to withstand and survive genocide, to seek to return to what remains of their homes, and homeland.
At the same time, the disturbing scenes that have unfolded outside of Gaza, from Washington to Brussels, herald an international paradigm which, while by no means new, is ever more explicit in its disregard for human rights and international humanitarian law, and its tolerance of racist, colonial rhetoric.
As our director, Eyal Weizman, told the Guardian this week, ‘Trump is not only thinking well within-the-box on Israel’s policy in relation to refugees in Gaza – but also within-the-box of settler-colonial practices.’
However long it holds, it would be a mistake to consider that the ceasefire means the end of the genocide. Genocide entails inflicting upon a population conditions designed to destroy them, in whole or in part, and those conditions are material conditions. Civilians returning to the north of Gaza have found virtually every hospital, every clinic, every maternity ward, still destroyed. They have found virtually all schools and civic buildings still destroyed. More than 90% of homes destroyed. The conditions of life created before the ceasefire persist after the ceasefire, while those same material conditions, the result of Israel’s brutal, 16-month-long military campaign, now form the basis the White House’s explicit proposal for mass population transfer. In the Guardian, Eyal emphasised the indirect violence such unliveable conditions inflict on a population: ‘to simply erase Gaza and turn it into a riviera is a way to continue the work of destruction by construction’. The genocide persists.
Since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, Forensic Architecture has been collecting data related to attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure by the Israeli military. In October 2024, we presented the exhaustive results of that analysis across an 827-page report and interactive cartographic platform. Our analysis revealed a systematic and organised campaign to destroy life, conditions necessary for life, and life-sustaining infrastructure.
After publication, our report was provided to the legal team representing South Africa in the case of the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).
Since launch, we have continued to update the platform with new data relating to population displacement, abuse of ‘humanitarian’ measures, destruction of agriculture and water resources, destruction of other civilian infrastructure, the targeting of aid, and evidence of Israel’s system of ‘spatial control’ in Gaza.
As the announced ceasefire agreement enters its tenuous first phase, amid allegations of breaches, we continue to closely monitor the region and update the platform.
Read, listen to, and watch coverage of the report around the web: Der Spiegel, Channel 4, Junge Welt, Wired, Dezeen, Columbia Journalism Review, ABC, and Palestine Deep Dive:
Visit the Cartography of Genocide platform (for full features, view on desktop), or read an overview of our report’s major findings.
‘When it Stopped Being a War’: The Situated Testimony of Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
If you missed it, we also recently published our situated testimony interview with the surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who volunteered at al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals during the first months of the Israeli military campaign.
Chemical Fire at Marathon Refinery
When a leaking petrochemical tank at the Marathon Petroleum refinery in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ caught fire, it produced a thick plume of toxic smoke that spread for miles over neighbouring communities. Authorities claimed that nearby residents were unaffected, even as residents began reporting severe health impacts in the days and weeks that followed. Fearing a cover-up, some of those residents asked us to investigate.
With the Guardian, we interviewed seventeen residents of the fenceline communities that border Marathon’s property. Drawing from these testimonies and a wide range of open source materials, we constructed a 3D model of the refinery site and smoke plume. We also worked with collaborators at Imperial College London to develop a fluid dynamics simulation of the plume and its chemical components, mapping their movement and density within our model and revealing that dangerous concentrations of known carcinogens such as benzene lingered in the air long after evacuation orders were lifted. Our work with the Guardian found that the disaster had lasted over four days and was one of the largest accidental releases of hazardous chemicals ever recorded by the federal government.
To make visible the inconsistencies and gaps in authorities’ reporting, we also produced a narrative platform designed to track and compare evidence of the incident’s development, accounts from residents, and the state’s response over time, suggesting widespread negligence on the part of local and state authorities.
Watch our film and read more about our findings. Read the Guardian feature, ‘The huge US toxic fire shrouded in secrecy: “I taste oil in my mouth”’, and how our joint investigation is supporting a class action lawsuit against Marathon Petroleum.
Events
Screening and Panel Discussion: The Massacre at Tur Al-Zagh: Al-Dawayima, 29 October 1948
Sun 9 February 2025, 1pm at Genesis Cinema, London
Join us for the premiere of FA’s latest investigative project examining the forced depopulation of the Palestinian village al-Dawayima by Zionist paramilitary groups and Israeli forces in 1948. In collaboration with Palestine Land Society, and working with survivors of the attack on al-Dawayima, FA has uncovered new evidence related to the site of a major massacre and corresponding burial site. This is the second of our investigations into the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages in 1948, which understand the Nakba not only as a historical event, but as a strategy of colonial erasure still being applied today.
The screening will be followed by a discussion between Salman Abu Sitta, founder and president of Palestine Land Society, and former al-Dawayima residents Mohammad Rajab Abu Khudra, Mohammad Al-Qaisiyeh, and Ahmad Adarbeh, moderated by FA researchers and Palestinian editor Hazem Jamjoum. The event will be in English and Arabic with live translation.
‘Conditions of Life Calculated...’ on the Gaza Genocide: Eyal Weizman gives the 2024-2025 David Graeber Memorial Lecture
Wed 12 February 2025, 18.30-20.30 GMT
Online
Updates
Recognition of push-backs in the case of Ayse Erdogan
On 7 January, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) published its judgement on the case of Ayşe Erdoğan, becoming the first EU court to formally recognise the systematic practice of ‘push-backs’ by Greek authorities against migrants.
In 2019, Ayşe crossed the Evros/Meric river border into Greece, only to be detained and ‘pushed back’ to Türkiye. We investigated the case and were invited by her representatives, the Greek Council for Refugees, to produce a report which was submitted to the court.
The ECHR judgement accepts that Ayşe was detained and expelled in what it describes as a systematic practice of pushbacks by Greece. Citing our report, it reads: ‘on the basis of a detailed spatio-temporal analysis [...] it is possible to establish the veracity of the applicant’s account’.
The fall of Assad and liberation of Saydnaya Prison
With the fall of the Assad regime in early December, the liberation of Syria’s Saydnaya Prison marked the end of an era of extreme violence, torture, starvation, and mass execution. Deeply moving images of survivors set free evoked the harrowing conversations we had had with a group of survivors eight years ago as part of our investigation into the notorious prison. As rescuers making their way through the prison sought access to its subterranean floors, we made our 3D model of the prison publicly available in case it could contribute to these search-and-rescue efforts.
Listen to FA Research Fellow Christina Varvia speak about our investigation and the on BBC Newshour.
‘Three Doors’ at Depo, Istanbul
Our travelling exhibition ‘Three Doors’, first shown at the Frankfurter Kunstverein in 2022, finished its latest run at Depo in Istanbul on 11 January. The exhibition was accompanied by a rich public programme, curated with Başak Ertür, a close collaborator and reader in Goldsmiths’ Centre for Research Architecture, with events including an in-person conversation with FA director Eyal Weizman, a roundtable on the aesthetic refractions of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) Complex, and a panel discussion with local lawyers and activists on two parallel cases of state-sanctioned racist murders from Turkey.
Inhumane Zones at Echo Correspondence, Vienna
This new solo show (Oct-Nov 2024) brought together a selection of FA’s recent investigations on Gaza since the start of the 2023 Israeli invasion, with a focus on the Israeli destruction of medical infrastructure in Gaza—including direct attacks on hospitals, ambulances, paramedics, and doctors—as an entry point for understanding the broader systematic annihilation of fundamental conditions of life for Palestinians in the besieged Strip. Central to the exhibition were the experiences of medical practitioners who worked in Gazan hospitals following 7 October and became key witnesses to the unfolding violence on the ground.