Al Jazeera has released a new documentary, available on YouTube, detailing Israeli war crimes and human rights violations in Gaza, based on videos filmed and posted on social media by soldiers themselves.
(Article republished from TheCradle.co)
“We live in an era of technology, and this has been described as the first livestreamed genocide in history,” Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa told Al Jazeera’s investigative unit (I-Unit).
We've built a database of videos, photos and social media posts. Where possible we’ve identified those who appear.
It reveals a range of illegal activities, from wanton destruction and looting to demolitions of neighbourhoods and murder. #GazaCrimespic.twitter.com/LmKn7fVnZH
— Al Jazeera Investigations (@AJIunit) October 3, 2024
Since the start of Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza last October, Israeli soldiers have posted thousands of videos and photos on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube.
Rodney Dixon, an international law expert featured in the film, says the videos are “a treasure trove which you very seldom come across … something which I think prosecutors will be licking their lips at.”
The film also includes information collected by Al Jazeera journalists working on the ground in Gaza, as well as Israeli military drone footage. It is unclear how Al Jazeera obtained the drone footage.
The videos show evidence of the Israeli army’s murder of unarmed civilians, wanton destruction, torture of detainees, and use of human shields in Gaza.
Many videos showed Israeli soldiers using explosives to demolish residential buildings and homes.
“The fact that they’ve been able to rig these buildings up with explosives shows very clearly that there’s no current threat from those buildings,” Charlie Herbert, a retired major general in the British Army and researcher for the project, told Al Jazeera.
?SICKENING!!
“Your homes, and we are demolishing them ”
Israeli soldiers boast from within a military bulldozer, bragging about demolishing homes in an entire area of Khan Younis and intimidating its inhabitants in this footage ! #GazaGenocidepic.twitter.com/mPxkziYgwF
— Nour Naim| ???? (@NourNaim88) December 31, 2023
In one video, a French-Israeli soldier films a detainee being pulled from the back of a truck and says, “Look, I’m going to show you his back. You’re going to laugh at this. He was tortured.”
“They took my son, the eldest, who had just been married,” a Palestinian man, Abu Amer, explained to Al Jazeera. “He was tortured. I could hear his screams as they were suffocating him and beating him in the adjacent room. There was nothing we could do with the rifles pointed at our heads. We could not make a move.”
Palestinian prisoners are coming out of Israeli torture chambers as emaciated ghosts of their former selves. Some unable to even speak.
This keeps happening. From Gaza to the West Bank. It’s been happening for months. Why is the world still silent? pic.twitter.com/VN7AIgSwvL
— Yumna (@yumna_patel) July 9, 2024
A Palestinian from Gaza, Fadi Bakr, told Al Jazeera he was forced to lie on a decomposing corpse by a soldier who threatened to execute him.
Bakr was later sent to the notorious Sde Teiman detention center in southern Israel, where he saw guards using a dog to rape a young male inmate.
Footage gathered by Al Jazeera Arabic showed Israeli soldiers forcing a detainee to inspect empty buildings while being monitored by a drone.
Separate footage shows bloodied detainees being fitted with cameras so they can enter potentially booby-trapped buildings before Israeli soldiers.
The Al Jazeera investigation also showed a video placed online by a soldier called Shalom Gilbert, a member of the 202 Paratroopers Battalion. The video shows three unarmed men being killed by snipers.
Israeli forces sent Jamal, a detainee, to a hospital in Gaza to relay evacuation orders. Snipers then shot him and killed him in front of his mother.
When his body was retrieved, the evidence of torture and assault was apparent on Jamal’s body.
War crime after war crime. pic.twitter.com/VJU0A9CUFp
— Hamza Yusuf (@Hamza_a96) October 4, 2024
Since 7 October, Israel’s military campaign to destroy Gaza and ethnically cleanse its 2.3 million inhabitants has killed over 41,700 people, the majority women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
In July, researchers published an article discussing the possible death toll in Gaza, in which they estimated at least 186,000 deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.
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