NEW INVESTIGATION: On this day in 1893 in present-day Namibia, German colonial troops carried out a massacre at ||Nâ‡gâs, a settlement of the |Khowesin (Witbooi) Nama the colonists called Hornkranz. Working with descendants of survivors, we reconstructed the nearly erased site.
Preliminary analysis by FA,
@alhaq_org
&
@earshot_ngo
into the
#AlAhli
hospital blast in Gaza casts significant doubt on IOF claims that the source of the deadly explosion was a Palestinian-fired rocket travelling west to east.
NEW REPORT: We analysed the visual material presented by Israel at the
@CIJ_ICJ
hearing on 12 Jan '24. We found 8 instances of the Israeli legal team misrepresenting materials presented through incorrect annotations and misleading descriptions. Full report
Our latest findings on the al-Ahli hospital blast: using 3D trajectory analysis, we dispute the Israeli military’s claim that the hospital was struck by a misfiring Palestinian rocket from a salvo of 17, with most of the damage caused by unspent rocket propellant.
Israel has falsely claimed that ‘the IDF does not hit hospitals’.
@alhaq_org
has footage of an IOF strike on the Al-Ahli Hospital cancer ward on 14 Oct (see image stills), and WHO has reported 59 attacks on healthcare in Gaza and 137 across the Occupied Territory since 7 Oct.
3D analysis shows patterns of radial fragmentation on the southwest side of the impact crater, as well as a shallow channel leading into the crater from the northeast. Such patterns indicate a likely projectile trajectory with northeast origins.
We are devastated to have received the news yesterday of the loss of our dear friend, respected collaborator and co-founder of Ain Media, Rushdi al-Sarraj, killed by a reported airstrike on his family home in Gaza City.
NEW INVESTIGATION: Since 7 Oct 23, the Israeli army has weaponised humanitarian measures such as ‘evacuation orders’, ‘safe routes’ & ‘safe zones’ to support their military operations & facilitate the mass displacement of Palestinians.
View the platform:
In reviewing our analysis, investigator & explosive weapons expert
@CobbSmith
agrees the fragmentation patterns may indicate the projectile came from the northeast—the direction of the Israeli-controlled side of the Gaza perimeter—and not from the west, as claimed by the IOF.
Our/
@CobbSmith
’s analysis of the crater size suggests a munition larger than eg a Spike or Hellfire missile commonly used by IOF drones. It is more consistent w/ the impact marks from an artillery shell—but w/o additional material evidence, we cannot make a definitive assessment.
A conclusive investigation into this attack requires full access to the site and munition fragments, as well as witness interviews. We continue our work on this case, and reaffirm our solidarity with Palestinian people under attack, including our friends & colleagues.
The IOF has a long history of providing false and misleading information after it has targeted and killed civilians. See: our investigations into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and the bombing of the Al-Katibah building
Our aggregation of news reports since 7 Oct suggests that hospitals in Gaza are subjected to a repeated pattern of intimidation, direct targeting, siege, and occupation by the Israeli military:
NEW INVESTIGATION: Since Oct '23, the Israeli military has systematically targeted agricultural land and infrastructure in Gaza. To mark Land Day in Palestine, we present our analysis of this widespread destruction as an act of ecocide that supports Israel’s genocidal campaign.
@earshot_ngo
analysed the recording released by IOF officials of an alleged exchange between members of Hamas implicating the Islamic Jihad in the attack. They found that the recording was manipulated and therefore not a credible source of evidence:
On the morning of October 18th, Israel Defence Forces released this video . performed an audio analysis and found that this recording was manipulated and cannot be used as a credible source of evidence. 1/4
Drawing upon available footage, our partner
@earshot_ngo
performed independent audio analysis of the missile attack, the findings from which lend further credibility to our preliminary assessment of directionality:
performed a Doppler Effect analysis from two videos from the missile attack on the Al-Ahli hospital. The results cast doubt on the IDF’s claim that the missile that hit the hospital approached from the south-west.
#AlAhli
#IDF
1/7
Last week, we launched , and asked you to share your footage with us of police brutality at the
#BlackLivesMatter
protests following
#GeorgeFloyd
's killing. We're turning that footage into an interactive platform, documenting violent acts by police.
With
@alhaq_org
, we continue to monitor cases of reported attacks by Israel on medical facilities in Gaza. This task is made harder by Israeli disinformation; in the thread below, we demonstrate that Israeli media statements following the al-Ahli hospital blast were misleading.
We geolocated a video circulated this morning, showing the movement of IOF tanks within the designated humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi in South Gaza. Reports from Gaza indicate a series of IOF attacks since last night on this 'safe zone', displacing thousands.
Human remains surfaced amongst the ruins of al-Shifa after Israeli forces withdrew on 1 April. The bodies of those killed during this invasion have been bulldozed and makeshift burial grounds—including a mass grave—have been desecrated. In Gaza today, even the dead are not safe.
Today at the ICJ, Israel claimed its targeting of medical facilities has military justifications. All hospitals in the northern region of the strip were rendered inoperable, irrespective of whether such military justifications were provided. See below:
Our aggregation of news reports since 7 Oct suggests that hospitals in Gaza are subjected to a repeated pattern of intimidation, direct targeting, siege, and occupation by the Israeli military:
7 months ago Lucas Villa was killed in Pereira Colombia while participating in protests during a national strike. FA
@bellingcat
@cerosetenta
@BaudoAP
analyzed the incident inc previously unseen footage. Our analysis shows Lucas was targeted in a coordinated assassination. Thread
A few examples to follow: 1) Israel’s legal team referenced an annotated drone image to claim Al-Quds hospital was used for military purposes and thus a justified target. We found the hospital boundary annotation was incorrect and no evidence of armed operations inside al-Quds.
In its defence at the
@CIJ_ICJ
, Israel claimed it has protected civilians with ‘evacuation orders’ and ‘humanitarian/safe zones’. In the week leading up to today's ruling on provisional measures, Israel has repeatedly targeted shelters & hospitals within these humanitarian zones.
2) The Israeli legal team incorrectly identified an annotated image of a crater as a Palestinian rocket launch site. We geolocated, modelled and measured the crater, finding it consistent with the impacts of Israeli bombs between 500 and 1000 lbs.
The second Israeli raid on the al-Shifa compound in Gaza is still ongoing. The limited visuals that have surfaced depict horrific scenes of fires raging in the specialised surgery building and the arrest and detention of Palestinians, reportedly totalling in the many hundreds.
Early Monday, Israeli soldiers raided al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for a second time and issued another evacuation order to civilians sheltering in and around the medical compound. We are continuing to document attacks on al-Shifa here:
Israel's legal team repeatedly argued that hospitals, shelters, schools, residential buildings & 'safe zones' had lost protected status & were legitimate military targets—relying on singular cases, themselves unproven, to justify widespread targeting of civilian infrastructure.
4) The Israeli legal team presented an image they claimed showed aid entering Gaza via the Rafah crossing. The trucks pictured are in fact heading in the opposite direction toward the Israeli Nitzana crossing, where many aid trucks were refused or subjected to lengthy delays.
3) Israel's legal team used an annotated satellite image to claim Palestinians fired a rocket next to a ‘humanitarian zone’ & UN facility in Rafah. This annotation was misleading: the Israeli military had not identified this area as a ‘humanitarian zone’ in any public statements.
Today is the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention, the first human rights treaty adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. When these pages were signed by world leaders, hundreds of Palestinian villages were in the process of being forcefully depopulated and demolished.
Our analysis shows that all 17 rockets travelled 1.8-2km at 500-630m/s and stopped flaring at a 1km altitude, ~4km west of al-Ahli. According to an aerospace expert, these figures indicate that all rockets would have finished burning their propellant while still in mid-flight.
The devastating explosion at al-Ahli hospital has come to epitomise the information war surrounding Israel’s post-7 October invasion of Gaza. Using our 3D model, we will continue to track the dynamic airspace over Gaza to challenge key pieces of Israeli disinformation.
These recent findings follow our previous analysis, which debunked claims made by an Israeli spokesperson about two videos he alleged showed the rocket responsible for the hospital blast:
Our 3D reconstruction and trajectory analysis confirmed reports by
@nytimes
and
@washingtonpost
: the Israeli military and media maintain that the 17 Oct blast at al-Ahli was caused by a misfiring PIJ/Hamas rocket based on 2 videos, neither of which in fact shows what they claim.
On 15 Feb
@UNRWA
posted a video of the ruins of al-Shati Refugee Camp, under which lies an archaeological site w/ remains from Iron Age, Hellenistic, Roman & Byzantine eras. Its destruction is an attempt to destroy Palestinian heritage, a key part of Israel’s genocidal campaign.
Shocking footage shows unimaginable destruction in📍
#Gaza
city, including our health centre.
+70% of civilian infrastructure- including homes, hospitals & schools- have been destroyed or severely damaged.
84% of health facilities have been affected by attacks.
Nowhere is safe.
Today we reveal new evidence about the massacres carried out by Israeli forces in the Palestinian village of Tantura after its occupation in May 1948. Our investigation establishes two very likely sites of mass graves—one newly identified.
NEW Investigation by FA and
@alhaq_org
's FAI Unit into the 11 May extrajudicial killing of Shireen Abu Akleh uses previously unseen footage provided by
@AJArabic
and advanced spatial and audio analysis to reveal conclusive evidence. Full investigation: 1/9
Today we publish our latest, months-long investigation with
@counterinv
, an interactive cartographic platform that archives, verifies and maps over 1000 ‘drift-backs’ in the Aegean Sea:
One of Gaza’s most important archaeological sites—threatened previously by Israeli bombings/siege—has been mostly destroyed in the Israeli invasion. The site, near al-Shati refugee camp, consists of several excavations which suggest extensive remains throughout the area:
The present destruction of the site by the IOF has unfolded in three stages: (1) airstrikes, (2) surface-level demolition, and now (3) the installation of water pumps ostensibly to flood underground tunnels.
4 August 2011, Tottenham, north London: Mark
#Duggan
is shot dead by police, after his minicab is pulled over by undercover armed police. He leaps out, turns, and is shot twice. Officers said he was holding a gun - but could this be true? Our latest:
Friends and comrades in Gaza are telling us about new kinds of destruction. Ferocious Israeli attacks weaponising the elements above and below Palestinian homes and commercial areas, producing human-made natural disasters -- targeted "earth-quakes" and "air-quakes"
Working with activists and lawyers in Jerusalem, we constructed an interactive urban narrative explaining the policies and practices through which Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah are being forcibly displaced, and their struggle with the Israeli courts and settler groups.
Early Monday, Israeli soldiers raided al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for a second time and issued another evacuation order to civilians sheltering in and around the medical compound. We are continuing to document attacks on al-Shifa here:
Since this last post from 20 October,
@WHO
reports that there have been more than 350 attacks on healthcare in Gaza, and over 750 across the Occupied Palestine Territory.
Israel has falsely claimed that ‘the IDF does not hit hospitals’.
@alhaq_org
has footage of an IOF strike on the Al-Ahli Hospital cancer ward on 14 Oct (see image stills), and WHO has reported 59 attacks on healthcare in Gaza and 137 across the Occupied Territory since 7 Oct.
Our analysis reveals how Israel's systematic displacement of Palestinians, towards areas already rendered unliveable by attacks on critical civilian infrastructure, has occurred in three phases.
Read our full text report here:
At the
@CIJ_ICJ
, Israel cited its use of ‘humanitarian measures’ to defend itself against the charge of genocide. Our research reveals these measures in fact support Israel’s genocidal campaign, forcing civilians into unliveable areas, where they come under renewed attack.
On 1 April, the IOF shot & killed Mohammad Al-Osaibi inside Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem. Our analysis challenges IOF claims that the incident was not captured by any of the dozens of cameras in Al-Aqsa. As occupying power, Israel is liable & must release all additional footage.
Israel's abuse of ‘humanitarian measures’ continued even after the
@CIJ_ICJ
ruling on provisional measures on 26 Jan. Through Feb, attacks on ‘safe zones’ (including Rafah) escalated, confirming the conclusion of a UN assessment from 6 Jan 2024: ‘there is no safe place in Gaza’.
With
@bellingcat
, we're looking to build the most comprehensive database of violence by police against protesters, journalists, and bystanders, to support legal efforts, advocacy, and accountability. Share your footage here:
Evacuation orders announced by the Israeli military have affected ~67% of the total area of the Gaza Strip. These orders concentrated hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into areas that lack the basic infrastructure for survival – in violation of international law.
Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, has been subjected to this systematic process of destruction and depopulation. We brought together open-source evidence to tell its horrifying story day by day:
Phase 1 began 13 Oct, when the Israeli army ordered 1.1M Palestinians in the area north of Wadi Gaza to evacuate within 24h. A new 'border' checkpoint on Salah al-Din Street enforced the new north/south divide and prevented displaced Palestinians from returning.
Forensis, our sister group in Berlin
@andrdimitra
@counterinv
compiled data on the scale of German weapons export to Israel which has further grown during the genocide… in support of a legal challenge seeking to halt it.
Today, on behalf of three Palestinians in Rafah, we - a Berlin-based collective of lawyers - filed an urgent legal application against the German government to halt the export of war weapons to Israel. This legal action was taken in collaboration w/
@ForensicArchi
&
@elsclegal
With Phase 2 still ongoing, Phase 3 began on 22 Jan, when the Israeli army invaded the ‘safe zone��� in al-Mawasi – Palestinians sheltering there were displaced once again. Today, Rafah, once declared ‘safe’, is under threat of imminent invasion and further displacement.
Phase 2: on 1 Dec, Israel published an online interactive ‘evacuation grid’, which announced evacuation orders by dividing Gaza into 623 blocks. Its use has been unclear, inconsistent, and contradictory, and amid communications blackouts, most Gazans cannot even access it.
Evacuation orders have consistently directed civilians to ‘safe routes’ & ‘safe zones’ that were not safe. On 13 Oct 2023, Salah al-Din Street was hit by an Israeli airstrike – the same day it had been declared a 'safe route' for evacuees moving south.
Evacuation orders have directed civilians to ‘safe zones’ with conflicting & inconsistent boundaries. For example, the Israeli military published at least 4 different boundaries for the al-Mawasi ‘safe zone’.
The present destruction of the site by the IOF has unfolded in three stages: (1) airstrikes, (2) surface-level demolition, and now (3) the installation of water pumps ostensibly to flood underground tunnels.
Our latest investigation is out. With
@risestjames
, we built tools to find lost cemeteries of enslaved people threatened by industry in Louisiana’s ‘Death Alley’ and used fluid dynamics to evidence the impact of toxic petrochemicals on Black communities.
Im Februar 2020 wurden neun Menschen bei einem rassistischen Anschlag in
#Hanau
ermordet. Das Vorgehen der Polizei an diesem Abend wirft viele Fragen auf. Wir arbeiten mit
@19februarhanau
und den Familien der Opfer zusammen, um einige dieser Fragen zu untersuchen.
FA is pleased to announce its first collaborative investigation with
@CST_echo
. Just over 3 months since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we present a detailed analysis of one of the first symbolically significant events of the war, the Russian missile strike on the Kyiv TV tower.
Our 3D reconstruction and trajectory analysis confirmed reports by
@nytimes
and
@washingtonpost
: the Israeli military and media maintain that the 17 Oct blast at al-Ahli was caused by a misfiring PIJ/Hamas rocket based on 2 videos, neither of which in fact shows what they claim.
Our latest investigation + our first ‘open source archaeology’, documents the ancient city of Anthedon near Al-Shati camp in Gaza—Palestinian heritage under threat from coastal erosion, repeated bombings & the humanitarian disaster of Israeli occupation.
Since the killing of George Floyd, protests against racialized violence by police have been met with further egregious police brutality.
With
@bellingcat
, we verified & analysed over 1000 incidents of US police violence.
View the interactive data here:
Our new investigation reveals how on ‘Tear Gas Tuesday’—2 June 2020 in Portland, Oregon—
@PortlandPolice
exposed protesters to concentrations of tear gas 100s of times higher than what the federal govt calls ‘immediately dangerous to life and health’.
Forensic Architecture supports today's international
#StrikeforGaza
. We take this opportunity to reaffirm our condemnation of the genocide in Gaza and our solidarity with Palestinians in Palestine and around the world.
1/ In 2020, Parvin, a young woman from Iran, crossed the Greek-Turkish border 7 times; 6 times across the Evros/Meriç river and once over the Aegean Sea. She was arrested and pushed back 6 times. We worked w/
@ECCHRBerlin
,
@rights360
and Parvin to reconstruct her journey.
The systematic and widespread pattern of destruction of medical infrastructure and forcible population transfer has put 28 hospitals in Gaza out of service, including all hospitals in the north of the strip.
Today we are launching a long-term and open-ended project on the
#Grenfell
Tower fire. Support the project, learn more, and share with us your video footage at
While the source of the al-Ahli blast remains uncertain, it is not unusual for Israel to attack healthcare facilities, workers, patients and health supplies. Since 7 Oct, Israel has reportedly targeted the Al-Shifa, Nasr, Rantisi and Turkish Friendship Hospitals, among others.
Satellite imagery shows that between 8 Oct and the start of the ground invasion in Nov, the site was riddled w dozens of craters from airdropped munitions. By 6 Nov, the extent of the site had been subject to 30+ craters (in red) ranging 8-16m in diameter.
In a report w our findings,
@alhaq_org
links Israel's destruction of Palestinian cultural heritage to environmental damage caused by pumping seawater, providing further ‘evidence of Israeli officials & military's genocidal intent’:
“The pioneering work of Wikileaks shattered every established paradigm of public interest journalism, and ushered in a new era of investigative reporting.” Forensic Architecture’s statement on the arrest of Julian Assange
Since Jair Bolsonaro came to power in 2019, his policies have led directly to a rapid spread of destructive illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon and increasing violence against indigenous Yanomami people. Our new investigation w/
@ClimateLitX
: thread
Reports of a Syrian man being shot dead at the
#Evros
/ Meriç river border were denounced as fake news by the Greek government. Our newest study suggests otherwise.
Sat. imagery from 8 Oct–10 Dec reveals the development of Israeli water pump infrastructure in/around the archeological site. We identified pipes and a 4.5m+ high earth mound in a ground-level video posted by IOF on 6 Dec, labelled w a biblical quote ‘and the water will return’.
On 13 Dec, the IOF reportedly began flooding tunnels under Gaza with seawater. Environmentalists caution this will render Gaza uninhabitable by compromising groundwater for generations. (Source: )
For
@VICEWorldNews
’ investigation into the killing of Palestinian protester Walid al-Sharif, we studied 25+ videos of the incident, synchronised those showing the moment he fell, and analysed them frame by frame to determine the precise time of each shot, including the fatal one.
VICE World News has reconstructed the death of Walid al-Sharif with never-before-seen footage from an al-Aqsa mosque raid by Israeli forces in April 2022.
Following the ground invasion, large vehicles (likely bulldozers and tanks) were used to terraform the area, turning the site into what appears to be a military outpost. In satellite imagery from 10 Dec, over 35 vehicles are identifiable, many armed.
Our analysis suggests the missile originated outside Gaza near a reported ‘Iron Dome’ launch site & exploded at a height of 5km, 5.7km from the hospital. Any freefalling debris from the explosion would have taken at least 30s to reach al-Ahli—but the blast occurred just 8s later.
In Jan,
@tazgezwitscher
published an article about us, titled ‘Zweifelhafte Beweisbilder’. The article contains mistakes & misrepresentations about FA & views of director
@weizman_eyal
. The author, Mira Nass, did not ask us to respond. Today,
@fr
reports:
As it stands, Israel has yet to provide any conclusive evidence to support the claim that the source of the deadly blast at al-Ahli hospital was a PIJ or Hamas rocket.
We used remote sensing to register ground disturbances and areas of change since 8 Oct (darker red indicates greater changes in terrain). The earth, ravaged and overturned by Israeli military vehicles, likely contains damaged archaeological remnants/artefacts.
Today human rights is under the rubble in Gaza. The very value and meaning of human rights frameworks and international conventions hinges on their ability to protect the life and dignity of Palestinians, as well as other indigenous, colonised and occupied peoples.
Our latest investigation is out. We examined the 2015 killing of
#TahirEl
çi, a prominent Kurdish human rights lawyer, in Diyarbakır, Turkey. Here's how we did it.
Video on our website:
Long-read over at
@openDemocracy
:
Amidst the many examples we might invoke to honour our lost friend, in our mourning we continue to mobilise Rushdi's creative drive and spirit in our struggle against Israeli apartheid. Our deep condolences to his wife, our friend Shurouq, and their young daughter. Rest in power.
If such terms as “ethnic cleansing”, “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” are offensive, they are most offensive to those experiencing the everyday impact of such policies.
Yesterday in Namibia activists marked the anniversary of an 1893 massacre by German colonial troops, which preceded the 1904-8 genocidal war against the Nama & Ovaherero. Today FA+
@counterinv
present new findings on Shark Island death camp in Lüderitz, where 1000s were murdered.
Am 12. April 1893 haben deutsche Kolonialtruppen im heutigen
#Namibia
das Massaker von Hornkranz begangen – noch vor der offiziellen Datierung des Genozids ab 1904. 1/11
Israeli-made air-quakes: On 15 May, Israel bombed the largest pesticide storage facility in Beit Lahiya, producing an environmental disaster with massive clouds of toxic fumes dispersing with the wind into residential areas as far as Jabaliya refugee camp.
Read more on the historical and current destruction of this important ancient archaeological site in our ongoing open-source excavation, ‘Living Archeology in Gaza’:
The explosions at Beirut's port in August devastated the city & left 300,000 homeless. In support of last week's call by survivors for an independent investigation, we've made our our moment-by-moment model of the blast available to download. See it here:
It is not without grim irony that on this anniversary, a genocide characterised by horrific human, environmental, urban, cultural and social destruction is playing out across Gaza in real time, alongside the targeting of other Palestinians around the country.
Channel 12, a popular Israeli TV channel, cited a different video in reporting the ‘misfiring rocket’ theory. But this is another case of incorrect location and incorrect timing: the video documents an explosion which occurred 24s before the al-Ahli blast, and over 1km away.
We used remote sensing to measure the scale of agricultural destruction by comparing the region’s ‘vegetation index’ before and after the ground invasion. Our analysis reveals that as of Mar 2024, ~40% of the land in Gaza previously used for food production has been destroyed.
An Israeli spokesperson incorrectly points to a mid-air explosion, captured in an
@AJArabic
video, as the misfiring rocket that struck the al-Ahli hospital courtyard. However, it’s very likely this video instead captures the unrelated detonation of an Israeli interceptor:
Civilian apartments & commercial areas in al-Rimal + Tel al-Hawa areas of Gaza suffered unusually severe damage, with streets like al-Wehda flattened over its residents. Working with Palestinian civil society, FA plans to send evidence to
@IntlCrimCourt
teams. Images:
@ainmedia
The data we've gathered evidences:
- 400+ attacks on civilians using chemical agents
- 300+ instances of unjustified arrest, detention, and intimidation
- 300+ physical assaults by officers
- 250+ attacks on journalists, medics, and legal observers
And we're still adding more.