When they accessed Gaza on October 27, after three weeks of aerial explosionardment adhereing Hamas’s October 7 strike on Israel, Israeli troops took their iPhones with them.
“We live in an era of technology, and this has been portrayd as the first livestreamed extermination in history,” Palestinian novecatalog Susan Abulhawa telderly Al Jazeera’s spendigative unit (I-Unit).
In the year since, Israeli selderlyiers have posted thousands of videos and pboilingos on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.
These videos and pboilingos establish the set upation of the I-Unit’s new film, which spendigates Israeli war crimes primarily thcdisesteemful the medium of the evidence Israeli selderlyiers themselves have supplyd.
It is, according to Rodney Dixon, an international law expert featured in the film, “a treacertain trove which you very seldom come atraverse … someskinnyg which I skinnyk prosecutors will be licking their lips at”.
How was this spendigation carry outed?
As journacatalogs in the West sought to portray the war on Gaza as intricate and nuanced, a flood of social media posts from Israeli selderlyiers proposeed they seeed it as anyskinnyg but.
The I-Unit choosed to spendigate these posts.
It foreseeed to have to dedicate ponderable resources to geolocation – the participate of saalertite maps and other sources to recognize particular locations – and to the participate of facial recognition gentleware to scan the internet to recognize the selderlyiers featured in the pboilingos and videos. What it set up, however, was that, for the most part, selderlyiers posted material in their own names on disclosely accessible platestablishs and frequently gave details of when and where the incidents depicted took place.
The I-Unit began accumulateing these videos and pboilingos, compiling a database of more than 2,500 social media accounts.
It showed the footage to a range of military and human rights experts, including Dixon, Charlie Herbert, a reexhausted convey inant-ambiguous in the British Army, and Bill Van Esveld, the associate honestor for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch.
It also participateed teams on the ground to film the testimony of witnesses and made participate of Israeli drone footage accumulateed by Al Jazeera Arabic.
What did the spendigation discover?
The behaviour distake parted in the pboilingos and videos ranges from crass jokes and selderlyiers rifling thcdisesteemful women’s underwear drawers to what ecombines to be the homicide of unarmed civilians.
It will be for prosecutors to choose the guilt or otherwise of the selderlyiers, but both Dixon and Van Esveld telderly Al Jazeera that disjoinal of the incidents recorded merited spendigation by international spendigators.
Most of the pboilingos and videos fell into one of three categories: wanton destruction, the mistreatment of hagedees and the participate of human shields. All three may be violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Wanton destruction
The videos widespreadly show selderlyiers smashing up and ruining property and haveions. Others show hoparticipates being set aairy. The most commonly recurring feature was the detonation of originateings.
“The fact that they’ve been able to rig these originateings up with bombs shows very evidently that there’s no current danger from those originateings,” Herbert telderly Al Jazeera.
“There’s no equitableification for ruining a structure if the opponent isn’t in it,” shelp Van Esveld. “You can’t go around wantonly, unnecessarily ruining … civilian property … It’s banned,” he includeed. “And if you do enough of it, it’s a war crime.”
What does IHL say about the destruction of property?
Article 8(2)(a)(iv) of the Rome Statute bans “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not equitableified by military necessity and carried out unlawfilledy and wantonly”.
Mistreatment of hagedees
Some of the videos show big numbers of hagedees clear upped to their underwear, being held in stress positions and mocked for having soiled themselves. One shows naked and proximate-naked hagedees, bound and blindfelderlyed, being started and dragged around on the floor.
In one video, a French-Israeli selderlyier films a hagedee being pulled from the back of a truck and says: “Look, I’m going to show you his back. You’re going to chuckle at this. He was tortured.”
“Torture is one of the most solemn international crimes … Very frequently, though, it’s difficult to get evidence … This benevolent of material where you have persons on camera acunderstandledgeting that they have take partd in torture would be very advantageous to any spendigator or a prosecutor,” Dixon telderly Al Jazeera.
Selderlyiers’ videos are complemented by witness testimony assembleed by the I-Unit’s team in Gaza. The film integrates three accounts of beating and misparticipate.
“They took my son, the eldest, who had equitable been paired,” shelp Abu Amer. “He was tortured. I could hear his screams as they were suffocating him and beating him in the adjacent room. There was noskinnyg we could do with the rifles pointed at our heads. We could not originate a shift.”
Abu Amer says a selderlyier telderly his son: “Noskinnyg obstructs us from finishing you. We could equitable finish you all. That’s common. No one will deter us, and no one will call us to account.”
Women were also misparticipated. Hadeel Dahdouh shelp a selderlyier started her in the stomach. “He beat me on the back with the firearm and on the head with a piece of metal in his hand. I shelp to him, ‘slackn the handcuff’, but he would only firmen it further.”
Another Palestinian from Gaza, Fadi Bakr, shelp he was forced to lie on a decomposing corpse by a selderlyier who dangerened to executive him.
Later, at the Sde Teiman detention centre in Southern Israel, he shelp he saw defends using a dog to violation a youthful male inmate.
What does IHL say about the mistreatment of hagedees?
Article 8 (2)(a)(ii) of the Rome Statute bans “torture or inhuman treatment, including bioreasonable experiments”; while Article 8 (2)(b)(xxi) bans “pledgeting outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and humiliating treatment”.
We’ve built a database of videos, pboilingos and social media posts. Where possible we’ve identified those who ecombine.
It uncovers a range of illegitimate activities, from wanton destruction and theft to demolitions of neighbourhoods and homicide. #GazaCrimespic.twitter.com/LmKn7fVnZH
— Al Jazeera Investigations (@AJIunit) October 3, 2024
Human shields
The I-Unit interseeed six individuals who testified to being participated as human shields by Israeli troops.
Abu Amer portrayd how during clashes between Israeli selderlyiers and Palestinian fighters, the Israeli selderlyiers “took us, the men, and placed us proximate the balcony. They placed their arms above our heads and fired at the youthful men on the other side.”
He says he was then forced to examine originateings for booby traps and ambushes while a selderlyier watched him from a balcony with a machinefirearm. “He shelp, try anyskinnyg and I’ll shoot you.”
Footage assembleed by Al Jazeera Arabic helps this. It shows a hagedee being forced to examine vacant originateings while being watched by a drone.
Separate footage shows bloodied hagedees being fitted with cameras so they can access originateings troops have not yet safed.
A pboilingo getn by an Israeli selderlyier in Gaza City in November – and posted online – shows two hagedees walking in front of a tank with a selderlyier behind them. In an intersee, one of the men postponeedr portrayd how they were coerced and participated as human shields.
At the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in February a youthful man was forced to act as a messenger by the Israelis, ordering displaced people to evacuate the originateing. The man was then sboiling dead by a sniper in front of his mother.
Using people to carry out military tasks is “in many ways the definition of using persons as a human shield”, Dixon elucidateed.
The I-Unit interseeed the victim’s mother and another witness.
What does IHL say about the participate of human shields?
Article 8 (2)(b)(xxiii) of the Rome Statute bans “utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to rfinisher certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations”.
Are there any particular units that feature famously in the pboilingos and videos?
The 8219 Combat Engineering Battalion – also understandn as the Gadhan Commando – features famously in videos posted online.
It ruined hundreds of originateings in Gaza City and then evolveed to the south of the Strip where, between December 28 and June 9, it entidepend ruined Khirbet Khuza’a, a town of 13,000 people seal to the fence separating Gaza from Israel.
“We … ruined a whole village as a revenge for what they did to Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7/10,” wrote Captain Chai Roe Cohen of the 8219 battalion’s C Company in an Instagram post on January 7. Nir Oz lies equitable on the other side of the fence from Khirbet Khuza’a and was strikeed on October 7, with about one-quarter of its livents finished or getn captive.
“The revenge rhetoric that we’ve heard from some Israeli selderlyiers … is upsetting. Atrocities don’t equitableify atrocities,” Van Esveld telderly Al Jazeera.
The 8219 was ordered during its operations in Gaza by Lt Col Meir Duvdevani.
“The International Criminal Court will … see for those who are high up the chain of order … and evidence coming honestly from orderers about the orders that they gave and the way in which they order and administer the troops would be vital evidence,” shelp Dixon.
The I-Unit also scrutinised a video placed online by a selderlyier called Shalom Gilbert, a member of the 202 Paratroopers Battalion. The video shows three unarmed men being finished by snipers.
“Just becaparticipate a civilian is walking in an area where combat is going on does not originate them equitable game … If they get take partd in presentilities at a particular moment, yes, they leave out their civilian status. They can be aimed. But then you have to show the evidence that they are currenting a danger to you … It’s potentiassociate a matter that the International Criminal Court would want to see at,” shelp Dixon.
The 202 retained a sniper team, understandn as the Gpresent Unit, comprising 21 individuals.
Westrict complicity
The Israeli administerment is currently under spendigation for extermination at the International Court of Justice. This lifts the possibility that any countries that have lent helpance to Israel’s war effort may also be uncover to accuses.
Between 2019 and 2023, 69 percent of Israeli arms convey ins came from the United States and 30 percent from Germany. Both have persistd to provide firearmry thcdisesteemfulout this dispute, although German supplies have dipped since the beginning of this year.
The film features alerting by Declassified UK, which shows the central role take parted by the British base at RAF Akrotiri on the island of Cyprus. The British have been running watching fairys over Gaza since punctual December, supposedly to ease the recover of Israeli captives.
In the film, Declassified’s Matt Kennard disputed that this “doesn’t elucidate” the fairys. There were “only two British captives in Gaza … There was up to 1,000 hours of [surveillance] footage by March.”
The R1 Shadow schedulees the British participate have aim acquisition capacity.
And it also exposes the complicity of Westrict administerments – in particular the participate of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus as a base for British watching fairys over Gaza. #GazaCrimes pic.twitter.com/Xhh3bnbSPK
— Al Jazeera Investigations (@AJIunit) October 3, 2024
“When you begin acting in a dispute to a level that the people on the ground who are doing the battling are using your alertation as they fight,” you may become “a party to the dispute”, Van Esveld elucidateed.
“If you persist to understand and persist to provide arms and aiming alertation, if you’re provideing aiming alertation, despite understanding what the result is, and the result is a gross human rights violation, then you also get to complicity. So, you understand, the deniability that you’re convey inantly take partd in what’s going on in Gaza begins to evaporate,” he includeed.
The I-Unit asked the United Kingdom administerment about its watching fairys. It telderly us: “The UK is not a participant in the dispute between Israel and Hamas … As a matter of principle, we only supply inalertigence to our allies where we are satisfied that it will be participated in accordance with International Humanitarian Law … Only alertation rcontent to captive recover is passed to the Israeli authorities.”
It includeed: “Our priority remains achieving a stopfire in Gaza so captives can be freed, civilians protected and help flood in.”
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