———- Forwarded message ———
De : Forensic Architecture forensicarchitecture@substack.com
Date: jeu. 6 févr. 2025 à 18:10
Subject: After the ceasefire: a Cartography of Genocide
To: miladyrenoirmiladyrenoir@gmail.com
Two weeks ago, a ceasefire was declared in Gaza, after more than a year of
incalculable suffering and loss-of-life.
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After the ceasefire: a Cartography of Genocide
Feb 6
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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.
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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
*Book tickets
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
Register here
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.
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