The occupation carried out a systematic destruction operation that relied on targeting the physical structure of Palestinian life
Afrasianet - In an article titled "The Engineering of Israel's Genocide in Gaza," Foreign Policy magazine reviewed a new book by British-Israeli architect and scholar Eyal Weizmann, in which he provides a documentary and analytical reading of what he describes as a systematic process of destruction, which relied on targeting the physical structure of Palestinian life and permanently reshaping the place.
The article pointed out that the book "Undergrounding: The Architecture of Genocide" comes at a time when the international debate is still ongoing over the characterization of what happened in the Gaza Strip, in light of the stalemate in the legal path before the International Court of Justice, and the political and media division over the use of the term "genocide."
Although many Americans believe that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past three years, efforts to comprehensively understand what happened there and hold Israel accountable have so far yielded little results.
The case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has been stalled by U.S. and European opposition, and the debate over what has been described as a "genocide" has turned into a fierce political debate and a preoccupation with definitional disputes, while student protests, which erupted in the spring of 2024, have been violently suppressed before subsideting considerably.
Today, Weizmann's book attempts to bridge this gap by telling the story of the systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip, street after street, farm after farm, hospital after hospital.
An extension of previous Israeli practices
The book is based on an analysis of thousands of photographs, videos, recordings and testimonies that his team used to create a digital map documenting destruction across the Strip.
The author provides a historical account of the development of the Gaza Strip, reviewing its status as one of the most fertile agricultural areas in the Middle East before 1948, and then traces the transformations it has witnessed since the Nakba, through the Israeli occupation in 1967, and ending with the blockade imposed on it since 2007.
Weizmann argues that the siege was not just a security measure, but rather a long-term means of controlling the population and weakening the necessities of life, before escalating into large-scale military operations following the October 7, 2023 attack.
Although the psychological and political trauma of the October 7 attack has pushed Israeli society toward greater militancy and a desire for revenge, Weizmann emphasizes that the methods of warfare in Gaza were not entirely new, but rather an extension of Israeli military practices that preceded it.
The book devotes a wide space to analyzing the tunnel war between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), explaining that repeated Israeli military operations – from 2008 until before the 2023 war – did not succeed in eliminating the tunnel network, but sometimes contributed to creating conditions that helped it expand.
Destruction of the elements of civil life
He also discusses the Israeli narrative about the size and complexity of the tunnel network, considering that some of the perceptions promoted were used to justify the extent of the destruction caused to the urban surface of the Gaza Strip.
The central idea of the book is that military operations did not only target fighters or the military structure, but also systematically destroyed the elements of civilian life.
"Understanding what happened in Gaza is not limited to the number of casualties or the scale of the destruction, but also includes an analysis of how the land, the environment, and urban space have changed, so that the destruction of living conditions becomes part of the military operation itself"
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Chapters of the book take on the character of a criminal investigation, with the author detailing how his team reconstructed specific war crimes facts, based on technical and on-the-ground evidence, while accusing Israel's spokesmen of presenting misleading or selectively edited narratives.
The author reviewed examples that included the razing of residential neighborhoods, the destruction of farms and agricultural facilities, the targeting of public buildings, hospitals, schools, universities, places of worship and economic facilities, as well as the expansion of buffer zones and the forced frequent displacement of residents into areas described as safe, while lacking a minimum of viability.
The book also addressed the environmental effects of war, arguing that the destruction of water and sewage networks, agricultural land and soil will have long-lasting effects beyond the period of military operations itself.
Expanding the concept of genocide
The book notes that large areas of agricultural land have been taken out of service, and that thousands of farmhouses, orchards and livestock have been destroyed, threatening the sector's ability to restore its agricultural production in the future.
Understanding what happened in Gaza is not limited to the number of casualties or the scale of the destruction, but also includes an analysis of how the land, the environment, and urban space have changed, so that the destruction of living conditions becomes part of the military operation itself.
In this sense, he calls for the expansion of the concept of genocide to include, in addition to killing and displacement, the destruction of the environment, infrastructure and conditions that make life possible.
The article concludes that the book provides a documentary and analytical vision based on architectural criminal investigations, maps and digital evidence to reconstruct the events of the war, and raises a discussion on the nature of military operations in Gaza and their humanitarian and environmental impacts, considering that the reshaping of the place and the destruction of the elements of life represent a key axis in understanding what the Gaza Strip witnessed during the war.
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Source: Foreign Policy
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