Over 400 Days of Unabated Genocide, Will You Act?

Description

Lee Mordechai says his country is committing genocide, as his report documents a wide range of atrocities committed by Israeli forces
 
By Nadav Rapaport in Tel Aviv, Israel and Oscar Rickett in London
6 December 2024 

An internationally recognised Israeli historian has concluded that his country is committing genocide in Gaza after compiling a vast, methodical report documenting a litany of war crimes committed since Israel’s invasion began last year following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October.  

Lee Mordechai, an associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has also held a fellowship at Princeton University in the US, has published a report titled “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War” which, in its English translation, is 124 pages long and contains over 1,400 footnotes.  

Using eyewitness reports, video footage, articles, photographs, eyewitness evidence and over investigatory material, much of it recorded by Israeli soldiers, the historian has produced what Haaretz calls “the most methodical and detailed documentation in Hebrew (there is also an English translation) of the war crimes that Israel is perpetrating in Gaza”.

Some of the most shocking incidents documented by Mordechai include a Palestinian woman with a child being shot while waving a white flag, starving girls being crushed to death while queuing for bread, a handcuffed 62-year-old Palestinian man getting run over by an Israeli tank and an air strike targeting people trying to help a wounded boy.

The database includes thousands of videos, photos, testimonies, reports and investigations documenting the atrocities Israeli forces are committing in Gaza, where over 44,500 Palestinians have been killed during the war. 

Mordechai also includes a section on "The media, propaganda and the war", noting that the current war has been "enabled and facilitated by massive media efforts to shape discourse in Israel as well as in the West – in countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany".

Corpses, killings and sunsets
Haaretz led its report on Mordechai’s document by drawing attention to footnote 379, which refers to a video clip showing a large dog eating the corpse of a Palestinian. 

“Wai, wai, he took the terrorist, the terrorist is gone - gone in both senses,” says the Israeli soldier who filmed the dog eating the dead body. A few seconds later, the soldier pans away from the corpse to the scene around him. “But what a gorgeous view, a gorgeous sunset. A red sun is setting over the Gaza Strip,” he says. 

Mordechai’s compendium details the killing of children by Israeli soldiers, the murder of entire families, the starvation and shooting of civilians, tanks running over prisoners and corpses, and much more.

Footnote 354 of the document shows footage of Palestinians being shot by Israeli forces while raising a white flag. The video footage, first published by Middle East Eye, shows many people waving white flags while apparently evacuating their homes. A woman with a small child is shot dead by an Israeli sniper, with the child managing to escape.

The historian first published the document in January and has been publishing updated versions of it ever since.

“I felt that I could not continue to live in my own bubble, that it was a matter of life and death, and what was happening was too big and contradicted the values I grew up with here,” he told Haaretz.

In his report, Mordechai confirms the veracity of the fatality figures published by Gaza’s Ministry of Health. According to the historian, claims that these numbers are exaggerated are groundless, and even the Israeli government treats the health ministry’s data as accurate.

Of the tens of thousands of people killed in the war, Mordechai includes in the document the death of four premature babies after Israeli forces decided to evacuate the hospital they were in. A nurse looking after five babies was forced to choose the strongest one, which was allowed to survive.

Other footage compiled by the historian – and again often filmed by Israeli forces themselves – shows a soldier forcing bound and blindfolded prisoners to send regards to his family and to say they want to be his slaves. 

Israeli soldiers are photographed holding stacks of money they plundered from Palestinian homes in Gaza and an Israeli army bulldozer is seen destroying a large pile of food packages from a humanitarian aid agency. 

In another clip, an Israeli soldier sings, “Next year we’ll burn the school,” while a Gazan school is engulfed in flames in the background. Numerous video clips documented by Mordechai show Israeli soldiers modelling women’s underwear they have looted. 

Genocide
The links included in “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War” also lead to graphic footage of bodies strewn about the haunted streets of the Palestinian enclave, of people crushed under the rubble and of puddles of blood everywhere.

In some footage we hear the cries of people who have lost their entire families in a single instant. There is also documentary evidence attesting to the killing of disabled people, sexual assault and humiliation, the burning of homes, random shooting, forced starvation, looting and more.

Mordechai argues that Israel’s war reached a brutal peak during the second incursion into al-Shifa Hospital in March, when the Gaza City medical complex became the site of mass killings. 

The Israeli army argued that Hamas was using the hospital as a base, but did not provide sufficient evidence to back up this claim. 

Another brutal peak has been Israel’s complete siege and assault on northern Gaza since early October, which has been widely described as ethnic cleansing. 
In an appendix to his report, Mordechai explains why he thinks Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide.

“We need to disconnect the way we think of genocide as Israelis - gas chambers, death camps and World War II - from the model that appears in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948),” he writes. 

“There don't have to be death camps for it to be considered genocide. It all boils down to the commission of acts and the intent, and the existence of both has to be established. 

"In regard to committing acts, it's killing, but not only – [there is] also wounding people, abduction of children and even just attempts to prevent births among a particular group of people. What all these acts have in common is the deliberate destruction of a group.”

‘Dangerous Development’ – Israel’s Seizure of Syria’s Buffer Zone Condemned  December 10, 2024
Egypt said Israel’s action was a breach of international law and a violation of Syria’s territorial integrity.
Arab countries have strongly condemned Israel’s seizure of a demilitarized buffer zone in Syria’s Golan Heights following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad government.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry described the move as “an occupation of Syrian territory and a flagrant violation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement,” the Anadolu news agency reported.  The agreement led to Israel’s withdrawal from some Syrian territories but left the Golan Heights under Israeli control.  Egypt said Israel’s action was a breach of international law and a violation of Syria’s territorial integrity.

‘Intent to Sabotage’ –   In a statement, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “The assaults carried out by the Israeli occupation government, including the seizure of the buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights and the targeting of Syrian territory by Israeli occupation forces, confirm Israel’s continued violations of international law and its intent to sabotage Syria’s chances of regaining security, stability and territorial integrity.”

The Ministry stressed “the need for the international community to condemn these Israeli violations and reaffirm respect for Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and that the Golan is occupied Syrian Arab land.”

‘Opportunistic Schemes’ – Qatar
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said it considers the seizure “a dangerous development and a blatant attack on Syria’s sovereignty and unity, as well as a flagrant violation of international law.”  The Ministry warned that “the policy of imposing a fait accompli pursued by the Israeli occupation, including its attempts to occupy Syrian territories, will lead the region to further violence and tension.”  It stressed “the need for the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities to compel the occupation to comply with international legitimacy resolutions, as well as to unite in confronting its opportunistic schemes.”

‘Blatant Violation’
Kuwait, in a statement from its Foreign Ministry, also expressed “its strong condemnation and denunciation of the Israeli occupation forces’ seizure of the buffer zone on the Syrian border.”  It described the act as “a blatant violation of international laws and UN Security Council resolutions, which emphasize the necessity of respecting Syria’s sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and regional safety.”

‘Territorial Integrity’ – Jordan
In remarks to the parliament, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, said: “We condemn Israel’s actions of entering Syrian territory and taking control of the buffer zone, and we categorically reject this aggression.”  “We emphasize Syria’s unity, territorial integrity, and cohesion, and this includes the unity of its territory with regard to the borders with Israel,” he stated.  Safadi also emphasized that “The aggression carried out by Israel against Syria, and the occupation of this land, is a violation of international law, an unacceptable escalation, and an assault on the sovereignty of an Arab state.”

Iraq’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued a statement condemning “the Zionist entity’s seizure of the buffer zone with Syria in the Golan and the adjacent lands.”  “This act represents a blatant violation of international law and relevant international legitimacy resolutions,” it added.

The Arab League, in a statement on Sunday, expressed “its full condemnation of Israel, the occupying power, for its illegal attempts to exploit Syria’s internal developments, whether through seizing additional lands in the Golan Heights or declaring the 1974 Disengagement Agreement void,” reported Anadolu.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his army on Sunday to capture the buffer zone in the Golan Heights, an area under Tel Aviv’s occupation for decades.