“The genocidal turn in Gaza forced us to adapt our methodology”: interview with Nour Abuzaid, Forensic Architecture

The war waged by Israel in Gaza and the occupied West Bank has been ongoing for nearly eleven months; it has claimed the lives of over 41,000 Palestinians to date, with nearly 100,000 wounded and 10,000 missing. From the day after October 7, 2023, Forensic Architecture—the London-based agency from which INDEX originated, and a pioneer in digital investigation—began documenting the events in Gaza. To understand the stakes of such an extensive investigative program, INDEX spoke with Nour Abuzaid, Senior Researcher at Forensic Architecture and a Palestinian born in Gaza.

INDEX: Forensic Architecture has done a lot of investigative work into the actions of the Israeli army in Gaza. Can you tell us about the team behind this work?

Nour Abuzaid: At our London office, we are a team of 25 researchers. Most team members have a background in architecture, but we also have developers, investigative journalists, filmmakers, and legal researchers. Since October 7, about half of our team has been working exclusively on Gaza.

Forensic Architecture (FA) has been investigating violence in Palestine since its first inquiries in 2010. Before I joined in 2020, our team had already covered several Israeli military operations in Gaza in recent years, violence by soldiers and settlers in the West Bank, as well as historical events such as the massacre in the [Palestinian village of] Tantura on May 23, 1948. We approach each of these cases as manifestations of the Nakba [“catastrophe” in Arabic, ed.], which we do not reduce to the events of 1948, but understand as an ongoing process that includes the current genocide in Gaza. In our work, we strive to articulate these two dimensions of violence—both sudden and enduring; or rather, to reinsert the violence of the present moment into its long historical continuum.

INDEX: Regarding the present-day violence, what sources do you use to conduct your investigations? And in particular, how do you verify them?

Nour Abuzaid: For most of our investigations, we work with open-source data, such as videos we find online, especially on social media. In many cases, we also work with confidential information provided by witnesses or media partners. Ideally, we get access to the original digital files of images or videos, which contain metadata confirming the date, time, and location they were recorded. However, once these are uploaded to social media, metadata is usually stripped, and it’s often impossible to trace the original photographer or videographer, especially in conflict zones like Gaza today.

To geolocate images, we examine visible environmental features in the image and match them with satellite imagery of the area to determine where they were taken. We also have other methods to confirm the date and time an image was captured, such as shadow analysis, which we explain in detail on our website.

These forms of analysis and verification methods have become fairly common among OSINT [Open Source Intelligence, ed.] and online communities today. Our main contribution, in terms of investigating and understanding complex events, lies in our ability to locate and synchronize multiple video sources within a single digital model, in order to reveal correlations and potential intersections. The 3D model becomes a canvas on which a series of relationships can be mapped between different media, thereby consolidating our understanding of an event from multiple perspectives. In practice, verification depends more on how well one image is corroborated by others or by additional data, rather than on what can be inferred from a single image alone.

INDEX: That’s interesting, especially as it reflects the transformation of today’s media landscape, where information is increasingly fragmented, and these fragments and shards must first be reconstructed in order to be properly analyzed. In that regard, the 3D model and the architectural approach to investigation—pioneered by FA—become essential. But FA’s uniqueness compared to other OSINT practices is not limited to this particular use of 3D digital models. In your work on Gaza, it’s important to mention your partnership with the Palestinian human rights NGO Al-Haq.

NA: Absolutely. In all of our investigations around the world, we try to work with partners on the ground. For Palestine—in Gaza, the West Bank, or elsewhere—Al-Haq is our main partner, but we also collaborate with other human rights organizations such as Al-Mezan, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, or the Palestinian Center for Human Rights [PCHR]. It’s crucial to work closely with organizations embedded within local communities, especially in contexts marked by occupation and state surveillance, as is the case in Palestine. In such situations, gathering and sharing information can be extremely risky. Witnesses will only share information with organizations they trust; in return, working with these trusted local partners gives us access to invaluable data and insights about what’s happening on the ground.

These partners have been severely affected by what is happening in Gaza: most human rights organizations can no longer operate there, researchers have been displaced, and others have been killed in the bombings—like journalist Roshdi Sarraj, co-founder of Ain Media, with whom we regularly worked. Israeli surveillance and repression have also intensified: some of the organizations we work with have had their offices raided, their phones tapped, and so on. While social media seems flooded with images documenting the violence in Gaza, it’s important to realize that what’s available online is nothing compared to what has actually been documented on the ground. Israel’s tightened siege on Gaza since October 7 isn’t just about fuel, food, or water—it also extends to telecommunications. Entire families displaced to different parts of Gaza can no longer communicate with each other. It’s rare to have enough battery power to film a video and then find signal to upload it. Journalists in Gaza often have to stand on rooftops with their arms raised for hours just to get enough network to upload a single video. Whatever amount of imagery is currently online, it only captures a fraction of what’s truly happening in Gaza.

INDEX: Because FA works with local partners, your work—and that of others using the same approach—is sometimes criticized as “biased”. Within Western institutions and media, Palestinians in particular are often seen as unreliable or partial witnesses. How do you respond to that kind of criticism?

NA: Treating Palestinians and other oppressed communities as unreliable witnesses is a form of racism we aim to resist—not conform to. FA’s mandate is very clear: we are an anti-colonial and anti-racist organization. We work with communities that are on the front lines of colonial and racist violence, who experience this violence every day—whether in Namibia, Colombia, the U.S., or Palestine. We are committed to working with affected communities in support of their struggle for justice, and to learning from their practices of resistance.

This does not compromise the objectivity of our work: our legitimacy as an organization rests on the truthfulness of our reports. We never publish anything we cannot verify or that lacks solid supporting evidence. Our role in collaborating with local communities is to provide proof of the violations they witness and to amplify their voices.

As a Palestinian, I find it upsetting that we constantly have to provide overwhelming proof of the Palestinian version of events just to be heard. That’s why witness and survivor testimonies are integral to our investigations, and our publications largely emphasize the convergence of those testimonies with objective and verified evidence.

Let me give you an example. When [Palestinian-American journalist and Al-Jazeera reporter] Shireen Abu Akleh was killed, several Palestinian witnesses quickly reported what they had seen—that she had been shot by the Israeli army. Their testimony wasn’t considered sufficient evidence, and Israel’s initial denial of responsibility was enough to cast doubt on the circumstances of her death. At FA, we investigated the case for six months and produced a detailed digital reconstruction of the circumstances surrounding her killing, providing unequivocal evidence of the Israeli army’s responsibility. Our report helped push Israel to admit responsibility for Shireen’s death, but in the end, it only confirmed what the witnesses on the ground already knew. In that sense, our report didn’t answer the questions Palestinians had—it validated what they had already been saying.

It’s clear that FA’s work is primarily directed toward a Western audience; and the reality is that the Western public will not take Palestinian testimonies seriously unless they are extensively corroborated and verified by scientific evidence and technical investigations. While I acknowledge the legal and political effectiveness of this type of inquiry within the current context of Palestine’s occupation, I sometimes wonder what it will take for Palestinian voices to be considered as valid as those of any other witness to an event — and whether our work should focus more on the questions being asked by people on the ground.

INDEX: Let’s return to your investigative work on Gaza, and more particularly to the controversy surrounding the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital on October 17, 2023, which killed 471 people according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Israel denied any responsibility for the explosion, claiming it was caused by a Palestinian rocket, and downplayed the number of deaths. The incident gave rise to an unprecedented wave of OSINT analyses—of varying degrees of rigour—published online and in mainstream media. Forensic Architecture, for its part, published several analyses questioning Israel’s account and highlighting inconsistencies in the Israeli army’s official communications about the incident.

The controversy lasted for weeks, even months, dominating international media coverage of Gaza. During this time, many unambiguous, factual reports of Israeli army attacks on other hospitals, schools, and UN shelters received no comparable media attention. To some extent, the focus on the Al-Ahli controversy itself—fueled by a flood of contradictory accusations—ended up obscuring the broader reality: the accumulation of war crimes committed by the Israeli army in Gaza. With hindsight, a few months on, how do you understand the significance of this particular incident and the controversy that followed?

NA: The explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital was a real turning point because, in the words of [British-Palestinian surgeon] Ghassan Abu Sitta, that was when “the war stopped being a war and became genocide.” Al-Ahli, the only Christian hospital in the Gaza Strip, run by the Anglican Church, was considered by many Palestinians on the ground to be the safest place in all of Gaza—hence the shock when hundreds of people were killed or injured in its courtyard. For us, investigating what happened and fact-checking Israel’s claim that it bore no responsibility for this particularly deadly incident was an immediate priority. Unfortunately, this effort wasn’t enough to prevent what everyone on the ground feared most: the normalization of incidents like this.

In the aftermath of the Al-Ahli explosion, this normalization happened on two levels. First, it became acceptable for the Israeli army—and for the international community that supports it—to kill hundreds of Palestinians in a single strike. Just two weeks later, on October 31 and November 1, residential buildings in the Jabaliya refugee camp were flattened by one-ton bombs, burying hundreds of victims beneath massive craters of rubble. This time, the Israeli army spokesperson confirmed Israel’s responsibility and justified such a high level of civilian casualties as collateral damage in the alleged targeting of a single Hamas commander.

Then, the Israeli army began systematically attacking or besieging Gaza’s hospitals, as well as schools, UN shelters, and all the places that Palestinians in Gaza had previously considered “safe” during an Israeli bombing campaign. In short: after Al-Ahli, everything in Gaza was criminalized and turned into a legitimate target; there was no longer a single safe place in Gaza for Palestinians.

Returning to your question, yes, the controversy surrounding the Al-Ahli hospital explosion ended up dominating the debate about Israel’s actions in Gaza and diverting international attention away from the deadly events happening on the ground—precisely as the military campaign was taking a genocidal turn. I think this ties back to my earlier point, where I used the case of Shireen Abu Akleh as an example, about the danger of engaging with somewhat artificial controversies—issues that are imposed and framed in specific terms by the very powers we are challenging in our work. It also underscores the importance of carefully choosing the questions we investigate, and reflecting on whom we are trying to answer, rather than simply responding to whatever dominates international public discourse.

Nevertheless, given that a number of published analyses converged in support of the Israeli version—that a Palestinian rocket was the most likely cause of the Al-Ahli explosion—I think it was necessary for FA to provide a counterpoint, based on the inconsistencies we found in that account through our full analysis of the available documentation we had collected. We have not finished working on this case and are currently reviewing new material.

INDEX: In terms of the firepower deployed, the number of deaths, and the scale of destruction of civilian infrastructure, the current attack on Gaza is unprecedented compared to previous Israeli military operations. This massive escalation represents not only a quantitative increase, but also a qualitative shift in the nature of the conflict, and it is precisely here that the current debate around genocide—both in legal and political terms—can be situated. How has FA adapted its investigative model to this genocidal turn in Gaza? How do you choose the cases you work on?

NA: For us, it was clear from the outset that we didn’t want to isolate individual incidents—we needed to address the systemic nature of the violence that has been unleashed in Gaza. When you go through the reports emerging from the field, you start to see patterns: the destruction of medical infrastructure, ecocide, forced displacement, attacks on aid distribution, and the deliberate manufacturing of famine.

The attacks on hospitals and medical infrastructure were not isolated cases. In the majority of instances, the attacks followed a similar pattern: they began with evacuation warnings, then intimidation through heavy targeting of the immediate surroundings, followed by strikes on the hospital structure itself. This phase was usually followed by a siege, with tanks encircling the facility, cutting off all supply lines and thereby forcing it to cease operations. During the siege, corpses could not be removed, and mass graves began to be dug inside the hospital premises. Finally, the military raid itself, carried out in total communication blackout, could only be recounted afterward by the survivors.

Interestingly, one of our main sources of information for understanding this phase of the invasion has been the images and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves, boasting about what they had done. We documented this recurring pattern, which ultimately put 32 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals out of service, including every hospital in the north.

The second trend we investigated concerned attacks on displaced populations—what we have called humanitarian violence. On October 13, less than a week after the war began, the Israeli army ordered all residents north of Wadi Gaza to move south. 1.3 million people were given only a few hours to evacuate. The supposedly “safe” evacuation route designated by the army was bombed that very same day. After the temporary ceasefire on December 1, this blanket evacuation order was replaced by a more sophisticated system based on a map of Gaza divided into hundreds of arbitrary subdivisions, each assigned a code number whose status—“safe” or “under evacuation order”—was updated by the army in real time. This obviously created conditions of total confusion and made it impossible for displaced people to know where they could evacuate to and remain safe.

We also documented several cases where designated safe zones were targeted or invaded by the army. This culminated in the invasion of Rafah, where the majority of Gaza’s displaced population had gathered, with the massacre at the Tal Al-Sultan refugee camp on May 26, 2024, followed by several other attacks on displaced populations. We published analyses of these trends and patterns in several reports that use a different methodology and reflect a different scale of violence than our investigations into specific incidents, such as bombings. This approach stems directly from our understanding of what is happening in Gaza as genocide—particularly under Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention [which defines genocide to include “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”]. The genocidal turn in the war forced us to adapt our investigative methodology and recalibrate our tools accordingly.

INDEX: FA’s work has been used as evidence in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Would you say that the way the genocide question is framed in the international legal arena shapes FA’s investigative approach to Israel’s actions in Gaza today?

NA: Our report “Inhumane Zones”, on attacks against and treatment of displaced populations in Gaza, was submitted as an annex by the South African legal team as part of their submission to the ICJ. Our report “Humanitarian Violence” was also cited by Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, in her report “Anatomy of a Genocide.” But we didn’t produce this work at the request of these institutions—they used what we had already published online independently.

I think that up until the end of 2023, we were mainly responding to events on the ground as they unfolded. Since the beginning of this year, we’ve begun thinking more strategically about how our work could support any legal effort that might lead to a ceasefire. Still, serving a legal argument is not the only criterion guiding our choice of what to investigate—we believe our work plays an important role in advocacy and public awareness.

In fact, we hope that our independent analyses and reports on the spatial patterns of violence emerging on the ground in Gaza can help inform how legal teams formulate their arguments before international courts—rather than the other way around. Beyond the question of whether the ongoing Israeli military campaign will be recognized as genocide in the legal and political arenas, our primary concern is doing everything in our power to stop the bloodshed of Palestinians in Gaza.

INDEX: FA’s work has been used as evidence in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Would you say that the way in which the issue of genocide is framed in the international legal arena informs FA’s investigative approach to Israel’s actions in Gaza today?

NA: Our “Inhuman Zones” report on the attacks and treatment of displaced people in Gaza was annexed by the South African legal team as part of its submission to the ICJ. Our report “Humanitarian Violence” was also cited by Francesca Albanese [the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967] in her report “Anatomy of a genocide”. But we did not produce this work at the request of these institutions; they used what we published online independently. I think that until the end of 2023, we mainly reacted to events on the ground as they happened.

Since the beginning of this year, we have begun to think more strategically about how our work might support any legal efforts that might lead to a ceasefire; but serving a legal argument is not the only criterion in choosing our investigative subjects; we believe that our work has an important advocacy and public awareness function. In fact, we hope that our independent analyses and reports on the spatial patterns of violence that we see emerging on the ground in Gaza can help inform the way in which legal teams present their arguments before international tribunals, rather than the other way around. Beyond the issue of recognising the ongoing Israeli military campaign as genocide in the international legal and political arena, we are primarily concerned with doing everything in our power to stop the bloodshed of Palestinians in Gaza.

[Interview conducted by INDEX on 22.06.2024].