Eyal Weizman describes Israel's "architecture of death" in Gaza

How is genocide materially detected? Since October 7, 2023, the Forensic Architecture laboratory has been attempting to map Israel's systematic destruction of the infrastructures of Palestinian society, which is being "eradicated." Haldun Bayri translated Lucie Delaporte 's interview with its founder, Eyal Weizman.

The Forensic Architecture lab, which brings together architects, journalists, academics, and artists across a wide range of disciplines, has distinguished itself in recent years by conducting investigations into numerous wars, such as those in Syria and Ukraine, and police brutality. In September 2022, Forensic Architecture demonstrated how journalist Shirin Abu Aqila was deliberately executed by the Israeli army during an interview in Jenin (West Bank).

Following October 7th, the Forensic Architecture team, convinced that an unprecedented attempt at destruction had occurred, began working on the Israeli attack on Gaza.

This work resulted in the publication of numerous reports aimed at “mapping the genocide . ” In July, one of these reports showed how Israel orchestrated the famine, particularly through attacks on agriculture.

Israeli architect Eyal Weizman, founder of Forensic Architecture, explains to Mediapart why his organization, based at Goldsmiths University in London and now with a dozen offices worldwide, supports the genocide case against Israel filed at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. He revisits the concept of "colonial genocide," which is central to his book. Interview.

Mediapart: Forensic Architecture began documenting the genocide in Gaza shortly after October 7th. How are you working on the ground? Is this the same kind of work as the investigations you've conducted so far?

Eyal Weizman: No, it's completely different. Normally, Forensic Architecture can work on a one-second sequence for a year. For example, when we work on police brutality cases, like the ones we do with our partner Index in France, it takes that kind of time.

Of course, we can't act this way about the genocide being committed in Gaza. So we started by collecting information on tens of thousands of incidents, and then we tried to understand the connections between all of these situations.

Click for the investigations file conducted by Forensic Architecture.

In the case of war crimes, we try to determine whether those killed were civilians or combatants, whether disproportionate force was used, etc. In a genocide, the relationship among the enormous diversity of cases is decisive. Is there a system, a purpose, a plan?

According to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, intent is central to the concept of genocide. This can be determined by the patterns of action that, at first glance, give meaning to individual cases. Beyond all the genocidal declarations made by the Israeli government since October 7th, our work has consisted of illustrating those patterns on our maps.

In what way? What are your tools?

Concretely, in every case we investigate – for example, the bombing of a food centre, the destruction of agricultural land – we preserve the video footage we receive, verify it and analyse the “event”: it happened at this time, on this day, etc.

Then, we have different mathematical models to look at the relationships between those different events. What is the system behind it? Can we detect a plan to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part? That's the definition of genocide.

If we see Israel systematically destroying agricultural lands, further obstructing the flow of food aid into Gaza, and targeting food distribution, then it becomes clear that the aim is to starve the population. The famine in Gaza is a consequence of these practices.

Article II, c) of the United Nations Charter defines it as "the forcible subjection of people to conditions of existence which will lead to their physical destruction in whole or in part." You don't kill people directly, but you kill them by destroying the infrastructure that makes life possible.

If you destroy access to food, if you destroy hospitals, if you destroy schools, if you destroy homes—what I call “architectural violence”—then the conditions for life are destroyed and death comes slowly, sometimes indirectly.

Today, Gaza is starving, and you, particularly in Forensic Architecture's latest report covering the period from March 18 to August 1, show how this corresponds to a methodically implemented objective of destruction.

Gaza is a long, narrow coastal strip with two types of soil: sandy soil to the west and clayey soil to the east. Almost all of Gaza's agriculture is east of the Saladin Road, the Gaza Strip's main artery.

Since the beginning of the genocide, we have seen a systematic campaign to eliminate Palestinian food sovereignty through the destruction of fields and orchards, the destruction of fishing gear – all the boats have been destroyed.

Destruction of agricultural land in Gaza. © Adapted from Infographie Forensic Architecture / Mediapart

Palestinians no longer have the means to feed themselves. They are completely dependent on humanitarian aid that passes through Israeli checkpoints. Israel has complete control; it can turn the tap on or off as it pleases. Several times, under international pressure, it has been forced to open it a little, but never enough.

The entire fabric of Palestinian society—all the food distribution centers, families, charities, mosques, bakeries—everything that sustains the community has been systematically targeted. This is an attempt to destroy Palestinian society by attacking the invisible bonds that form its structure.

In their place, Israel has built new food distribution sites—in effect, death traps.

Well?

You have to think of Gaza as both a demolition zone and a construction zone, because Israeli bulldozers are demolishing Palestinian buildings, but they are also building an entirely new architecture with the rubble.

For example, they built food distribution centers out of the rubble of demolished houses, what I call a death architecture. They did this within a small perimeter, a kind of "death trap" where Israeli forces could easily open fire on people. Everything was done to make trying to get food in these places very complicated and very dangerous.

The rubble of the buildings also serves to build breakwaters in the sea, small hills that allow the army to keep watch over Gaza, which is generally a flat area.

Architecture as spatial organization provides a very good framework for analyzing genocide, as architecture is also based on intention.

This is what forms the basis for your contribution to South Africa's genocide complaint against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Yes, the preparation of the 825-page report prepared for South Africa's legal committee, which forms the factual basis of this procedure, was also thanks to that work.

We present elements of evidence regarding the destruction of hospitals, agriculture, education, and the organization of famine, and we show how all of this went together.

We see the lawsuit filed by South Africa against Israel as an opportunity for the struggle for human rights and international law. We believe the issue at stake here is crucial. It is a historic event for a Southern country, which has suffered from apartheid and experienced colonial settlement, to attack Israel while all Western countries defend it. This is why we strongly support that complaint.

We have no illusions about the court's influence on the events that are unfolding, but this case has a historical and symbolic power.

In your investigation into the murder of photographer and journalist Fatma Hassuna, you say Israeli forces mosaicked satellite images of the victim's roof to obscure evidence. Is working with the images becoming increasingly complex for you? Witnesses who send you photos or videos also take enormous risks.

Yes, it's a problem. Uploading videos in Gaza is incredibly difficult. Connections are systematically cut, and finding a network to connect to is difficult. But despite the difficulties, despite the risks to the lives of those filming, people continue to send us videos of Gaza, like dropping a bottle with a message into the sea.

You open the bottle and read that message with utmost care to justify the risk they took. Therefore, we have very strict protocols to avoid exposing our sources in the field. We are very careful to remove any markings that could identify or locate our sources.

We didn't ask for videos or photos to be posted. People send them because they know and trust us. But we prefer to post them online because it's better for people's safety.

The environment you work in in Gaza is particularly difficult. Your German office recently had to close.

The German government cut funding, which led to the office's closure in January. Generally, after October 7th, I was accused of being anti-Semitic in many of the countries where we worked, including Israel, of course, but especially Germany. Coming from a Jewish family that survived Auschwitz, it was particularly painful for me to hear this in this country.

However, our very small group, still in this country, recently exposed a very significant case of police brutality related to demonstrations in support of Gaza. Police accused demonstrators in Berlin of violently assaulting a police officer. The government seized this opportunity to ban demonstrations in support of Palestine. We were able to establish that the facts were the exact opposite of the official version. In fact, the police officer hit the demonstrator so hard that he broke his own hand. So, they thought they had eliminated us, but they didn't quite succeed.

By declaring international law anti-Semitic, Israel creates more anti-Semitism.

As for the context, my university in London is currently undergoing an anti-Semitism investigation, and I know that this is partly due to the work of Forensic Architecture.

I want to emphasize the seriousness of this issue, because anti-Semitism, especially in France, is truly prevalent and deadly. Jews must be protected wherever they live.

But by declaring the defense of human rights and international law anti-Semitism, Israel is creating more anti-Semitism. What gives me hope are those young Jews in various countries who oppose the genocidal state. They are the future.

You're working on a book that will be released in a few months. In it, you discuss what you call " colonial genocide ." Could you tell us something about this concept?

When we think of genocide, we think of the Jewish Holocaust . It's a crime committed at a specific time and place. But genocide can take different forms.

The genocide of Palestinians did not begin on October 7. To understand this, we need to look at the long history and the transformation of the places and environments where Palestinians live.

Through a study of maps and territories, I want to return to the history of the creation of the Gaza Strip, the expulsion of Palestinians from Southern Palestine, and the virtual erasure of Palestinian villages. It is necessary to understand how Israeli colonies, particularly kibbutzim , built on the ruins of Palestinian villages, were placed on these lands.

Gaza was never a desert. Until 1948, it was a lush green land.

This will be a long history of Gaza, told through the history of the surrounding area and the land. The majority of Gaza's inhabitants were formerly Bedouins. They were not nomads, but rather agriculturalists who settled around the river in the Gaza Valley. They had developed very complex agricultural techniques. I'm working specifically on the village of Al Ma'in, where historian Salman Abu Sitta and the renowned Palestinian physician Ghassan Abu Sitta came from.

We attempt to reconstruct how Israeli settlers transformed the landscape and the environment. This makes it possible to situate the post-October 7 genocide within a much longer process of settler colonialism—which is itself a form of genocide.

After October 7th, Israel turned Gaza into a desert. But this issue has a much longer history. We know the slogan Israel uses, claiming to "make the desert bloom." But Gaza has never been a desert. The area was always inhabited by Palestinian Bedouins who cultivated barley for the British, especially for beer. Until 1948, it was a lush green land.

You're working on erasing these traces. You're even working on erasing the traces of erasure, which is one of the distinguishing features of genocide attempts.

When the Israelis destroyed a Palestinian village, they didn't just demolish the buildings. They plowed the land, even the cemeteries and roads. If a field had been plowed in one direction, they plowed it in the other. This was to truly erase all traces of the way of life that had existed before. Today, I observe the same phenomena, the only difference being that the plowing was done with bulldozers.

Destruction is one aspect of the work. In my work at Forensic Architecture, I have seen a lot of demolition. But in Gaza, what I see is not just demolished buildings; I see the destruction of the land itself, and I call this the "eradication" of Gaza.

During the founding of Israel, one form of torture used against Palestinians was to take them to their villages, which were destroyed and nothing remained. Not a single trace was left.

Is that why you wanted to focus on soils?

Yes, because orchestrating the desertification of Gaza is political. Building dams to divert water flows for Israel's benefit is exploiting the environment to drive Palestinians from their lands.

Creating a desert is a consistent hallmark of genocide. It's the destruction of habitable forms. Israel first creates a desert and then sends Palestinians there. Consider the Armenian genocide and the German genocide in Namibia: in both cases, the desert was an "instrument" of destruction.

I also work on deep-seated casualties. Since October 7, Israel has been dropping bombs that detonate 30 meters underground; according to the official statement, this was to destroy Hamas tunnels.

Those bombs contain a vast array of chemical products that will contaminate the soil and linger for decades. Saltwater has also been injected into the ground—damaging the aquifer . Dust from all the collapsed buildings in Gaza has penetrated deeply into the soil, creating pollution that will last for years. This is also political. Contaminating the ground destroys the viability of future generations.

I believe settler colonialism, as the anthropologist Patrick Wolfe puts it, has a logic of elimination. Most people who die in colonial genocide don't die violently. Of course, there are massacres. But people die from secondary causes. It's like a chronic genocide.

For a more in-depth approach to this topic, we recommend the long interview Eyal Weizman gave for Diagram[me]s last January .

Click here for a previously published article on Medyascope on Forensic Architecture and its founder, Eyal Weizman .