Israeli historian reveals evidence of war crimes in Gaza

Lee Mordechai releases devastating report on genocide in Gaza, exposing atrocities committed by Israel and shocking the world with the details

An internationally recognized Israeli historian has concluded that his country is committing genocide in Gaza, after compiling an extensive and methodical report documenting a series of war crimes committed since the start of Israel’s invasion last year, following the Hamas-led attacks on September 7. October.

Lee Mordechai, an associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who was also a fellow at Princeton University in the US, published a report titled “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War”which, in its English translation, is 124 pages long and has more than 1,400 footnotes.

Using eyewitness accounts, video footage, articles, photographs, witness evidence, and other investigative materials, much of which was recorded by Israeli soldiers, the historian has produced what the Haaretz describes it as “the most methodical and detailed documentation in Hebrew (there is also an English translation) of the war crimes Israel is committing in Gaza.”

Some of the most shocking incidents documented by Mordechai include a Palestinian woman with a child being shot while waving a white flag, starving girls being crushed to death while queuing for bread, a handcuffed 62-year-old Palestinian man being run over by a tank Israeli attack and an air strike against people trying to help an injured boy.

The database includes thousands of videos, photos, testimonies, reports and investigations documenting atrocities committed by Israeli forces in Gaza, where more than 44,500 Palestinians were killed during the war.

Mordechai also includes a section on “The Media, Propaganda, and War,” noting that the current war has been “enabled and facilitated by massive media efforts to shape discourse in Israel as well as in the West – in countries such as the United States, Canada , United Kingdom and Germany”.

Corpses, murders and sunsets
O Haaretz began his report on Mordechai’s document by highlighting footnote 379, which refers to a video clip showing a large dog eating the corpse of a Palestinian.

“Wai, wai, he caught the terrorist, the terrorist is gone – gone both ways,” says the Israeli soldier who filmed the dog eating the dead body. A few seconds later, the soldier moves the camera away from the corpse to the scene around him. “What a wonderful view, a beautiful sunset. A red sun sets over the Gaza Strip,” he says.

Mordechai’s compendium details the murder of children by Israeli soldiers, the murder of entire families, starvation and shooting at civilians, tanks running over prisoners and corpses, among others.

Footnote 354 of the document shows images of Palestinians being shot by Israeli forces while raising a white flag. The video, originally published by Middle East Eyeshows several people waving white flags as they apparently evacuate their homes. A woman with a young child is shot and killed by an Israeli sniper, with the child managing to escape.

The historian first published the document in January and has been releasing updated versions since then.

“I felt like I couldn’t keep living in my own bubble, that this was a matter of life and death, and what was happening was too big and contradicted the values ​​I grew up with here,” he told Haaretz.

In his report, Mordechai confirms the veracity of the fatality figures released by the Gaza Ministry of Health. According to the historian, allegations that these numbers are exaggerated are unfounded, and even the Israeli government treats the health ministry’s data as accurate.

Among the tens of thousands of people killed in the war, Mordechai includes in the document the death of four premature babies after Israeli forces decided to evacuate the hospital where they were. A nurse, responsible for five babies, was forced to choose the strongest one, who survived.

Other images compiled by the historian – often filmed by Israeli forces themselves – show a soldier forcing tied and blindfolded prisoners to send messages to his family, saying they want to be his slaves.

Israeli soldiers are photographed with piles of cash looted from Palestinian homes in Gaza, and an Israeli army backhoe is seen destroying a large pile of food packages from an aid agency.

In another video, an Israeli soldier sings: “Next year we will burn the school,” while a Gaza school is engulfed in flames in the background. Several clips documented by Mordechai show Israeli soldiers posing in women’s underwear that they looted.

Genocide

Links included in the “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War” report also lead to graphic images of bodies strewn across the desolate streets of the Palestinian enclave, people crushed under the rubble and pools of blood everywhere.

In some footage, we hear the screams of people who lost their entire families in a single instant. There is also documentary evidence attesting to the murder of people with disabilities, sexual assault and humiliation, burning of houses, random shootings, forced starvation, looting and much more.

Mordechai argues that Israel’s war reached a brutal peak during the second raid on al-Shifa Hospital in March, when the Gaza medical complex became the site of mass killings.

The Israeli army claimed that Hamas was using the hospital as a base, but did not provide sufficient evidence to support this claim.

Another brutal spike has been the complete siege and Israeli assault on northern Gaza since early October, widely described as ethnic cleansing.

In an appendix to his report, Mordechai explains why he believes Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide.

“We need to disconnect the way we think about genocide as Israelis – gas chambers, death camps and the Second World War – from the model that appears in the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948),” he writes.

“It is not necessary to have extermination camps for this to be considered genocide. It all comes down to commission of acts and intent, and the existence of both must be established.

“In relation to the practice of acts, it is killing, but not only that – [há] also hurt people, kidnap children and even try to prevent the birth of a certain group of people. What all of these acts have in common is the deliberate destruction of a group.”

With information from Middle East Eye*