Al Jazeera investigation exposes Israeli war crimes

Published on: 02 Oct 2024

This feature length investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit exposes Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves during the year-long conflict.

The I-Unit has built up a database of thousands of videos, photos and social media posts. Where possible it has identified the posters and those who appear.

The material reveals a range of illegal activities, from wanton destruction and looting to the demolition of entire neighbourhoods and murder.

“It is a treasure trove which you very seldom come across… To have that is something which I think prosecutors will be licking their lips at”, says international law expert, Rodney Dixon KC.

In social media posts, soldiers frequently make little pretence there is military logic behind their actions. “We, Company C Commando Engineering Corps, decimated a whole village as revenge for what was done to Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7/10,” wrote Capt Chai Roe Cohen of the 8219 Commando Engineering Battalion, following the destruction of the town of Khirbet Khuza’a between December 28 and January 9.

The film also tells the story of the war through the eyes of Palestinian journalists, human rights workers and ordinary residents of the Gaza Strip. It exposes the complicity of Western governments – in particular the use of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus as a base for British surveillance flights over Gaza.

Information gathered is “passed to the Israeli authorities” – supposedly to facilitate hostage rescue.
The film examines a video placed online by members of Israel’s Paratroopers Battalion that shows at least three unarmed men being shot by snipers.

The I-Unit also reveals horrific new details of the treatment of prisoners at the Sde Teiman detention centre.

“The west cannot hide, they cannot claim ignorance. Nobody can say they didn’t know,” says Palestinian writer, Susan Abulhawa, who spent time inside Gaza earlier this year.

This is “the first livestream genocide in history … If people are ignorant, they are wilfully ignorant,” she says.