By LifeSiteNews (Politics) | Created at 2024-12-24 19:03:14 | Updated at 2024-12-25 08:26:32
13 hours ago
Tue Dec 24, 2024 - 1:44 pm EST
(LifeSiteNews) — For over a year charges of war crimes and genocide against Israeli leaders and its army have been dismissed by pro-Zionist commentators on mainstream and social media. A new report from an Israeli historian has now documented in horrifying detail the human toll of Israel’s war in Gaza.
In “Bearing Witness to the Israeli-Gaza War,” Princeton scholar Dr. Lee Mordechai has produced an online record which he says proves “that Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza.”
Mordechai says of his report, “This is an attempt to preserve a record for those who seek clarity and insight amidst the conflicting narratives in public discourse.”
Writing for Haaretz on the release of the latest English version, Nir Hasson said of the report: “[It] constitutes the most methodical and detailed documentation … of the war crimes that Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. It is a shocking indictment comprised of thousands of entries relating to the war, to the actions of the government, the media, the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli society in general.”
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Mordechai’s report contains numerous videos and eyewitness accounts, with frequent reference to the statements of Israel’s leadership and comments made online in support of what the Israeli academic defines as genocide. He began compiling this account earlier in 2024, in order to fulfill what he felt to be his “moral obligation to examine and document the unfolding events.”
He explained in the preface to the report, “This work is an act of bearing witness – a reflection of my commitment to justice, accountability, and the ethical responsibility of ensuring that such stories are told and preserved.”
I invite readers to critically examine the evidence and consider the moral and political questions the current situation raises.”
Mordechai explains why he has “written in a measured and factual tone,” explaining that “the document avoids emotional language, instead allowing the evidence to speak for itself.”
The evidence is presented abundantly. As Hasson recounted for Haaretz, “The links in ‘Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War’ … lead to graphic footage of bodies strewn about, in every possible condition; of people crushed under rubble; of puddles of blood; and of the cries of people who lost their entire families in an instant.”
Hasson details some of the contents of the 124 pages, which include “over 1,400 footnotes referencing thousands of sources, including eyewitness reports, video footage, investigatory materials, articles and photographs.”
He summarizes the contents.
“There are items attesting to the killing of disabled people, humiliation and sexual assaults, the torching of homes, forced starvation, random shooting, looting, abuse of corpses and much more.”
Hasson spoke to Mordechai, describing the 42-year-old “former officer in the IDF Combat Engineering Corps” and “senior lecturer in history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem” as an expert in “human and natural disasters in the ancient and medieval eras.”
The rigor of Mordechai’s research and methods is stressed.
“He approached the subject of the Gaza disaster in an academic-historical way, with dry prose and few adjectives, availing himself of the greatest possible diversity of primary sources; his writing is devoid of interpretation and open to review and revision. Which is precisely why the faces reflected in his text are so utterly appalling.”
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As Hasson states, “Mordechai cites evidence of the horrific predicaments the war has forced upon Gazans. A physician who amputates his niece’s leg on a kitchen table, without anesthesia, using a kitchen knife. People eating horse flesh and grass, or drinking sea water to ameliorate their hunger. Women compelled to give birth in a classroom crowded with people. Doctors helplessly looking on as wounded people die because there’s no way to help them.”
Why did Mordechai begin recording the genocide in Gaza? He told Hasson, “I felt that I couldn’t go on living in my bubble, that we’re talking about capital offenses, and that what’s going on is just too large, and contradicts the values I was raised on here.”
He explained he does not seek confrontation.
“I’m not out to confront people or to argue. I wrote the document so it would be out there.”
As a historian, he says, he feels compelled to create a record of events, “[s]o that in another half a year or year or five years or 10 or 100 – people will be able to go back and see that this is what was known, this is what it was possible to know, as early as this past January, or March, and that those among us who didn’t know, chose not to know.”
Thread 🧵⬇️
EXCLUSIVE: Drop Site News reported yesterday on the ongoing Israeli attacks against Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. We are now sharing newly obtained footage and testimony of renewed Israeli attacks on Kamal Adwan and Indonesian Hospital in the last 24 hours.… pic.twitter.com/pRh5zXp8aS
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) December 18, 2024
Mordechai’s reasoning is clear: this is what is known now, and he has made it known in a manner which is impossible to dismiss as partisan propaganda. This is a genocide that can no longer be denied, he has said.
“My role as a historian,” he continued, “is to give voice to those who cannot sound their own voices…”
He explains the dry, dispassionate tone of his work.
“I deliberately seek not to appeal to people’s emotions, and don’t use words that may be controversial or unclear. I don’t talk about terrorists or about Zionism or about antisemitism. I’m trying to use as cold and dry a language as possible, and to stick to the facts as I understand them.”
A history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mordechai began to document Israeli actions and their consequences in Gaza whilst on sabbatical at Princeton in the U.S.
He published a long thread detailing his methods, findings and motivations on X (formerly Twitter) in June:
1/ I’m an Israeli historian. My community is still too silent about the horrible war in Gaza. Over 8 months I’ve closely followed the war, reading >1000 articles and viewing >1000 videos/images of the war from all sides. My summary conclusions & full report are in the 🧵:
— Lee Mordechai (@LeeMordechai) June 18, 2024
Mordechai’s work documents in sections the U.S. backing of the war, phases of the campaign, the Israeli use of the issue of the hostages, and treats in detail the two weeks assault on the Al-Shifa hospital as one example of the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure. Similar assaults continue to take place, with the attack on two further hospitals documented by independent Gaza journalist Hossam Shabat, and also in a long thread by DropSiteNews.
من داخل قسم العناية المركزة في مستشفى كمال عدوان
إجرام لا يوصف pic.twitter.com/9D3ZxqwCT0
— حسام شبات (@HossamShabat) December 18, 2024
Translation: “From inside the intensive care unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital. Unspeakable crime.”
Mordechai’s record challenges the reader to look at what is there, rather than look away. It also considers what people were directed to see instead of what is taking place. He says, “The most prominent story at the beginning of the war was the one about 40 Israeli infants decapitated on October 7. That story generated a lot of headlines in the international media, but when you compare it with the list of those killed, you realize very quickly that it didn’t happen.”
“يحدث هناك فقط”.. فلسطينيون يستخدمون عربة لنقل شهداء وجرحى لمستشفى كمال عدوان في قطاع #غزة
“Only there does it happen”.. Palestinians use a cart to transport martyrs and the wounded to Kamal Adwan Hospital in the #Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/AtEKb2oWmD
— حسام شبات (@HossamShabat) December 18, 2024
Mordecai published his first version of “Bearing Witness” in January 2024. On December 5, a seventh revision went online, documenting the recent campaign in northern Gaza.
BREAKING: The Israeli Air Force is relentlessly bombing the Gaza Strip as we speak, targeting Hamas cells everywhere. The explosions can be heard all across southern Israel.
There is nowhere to hide. Israel will get them all.
— Vivid.🇮🇱 (@VividProwess) December 7, 2024
As Hasson notes, the report shows the “indifference” of Israelis and their authorities to a war which has “killed more children than in all the wars in the world in the past three years.”
Routine orders permitting the killing of civilians are documented, along with the revelation that Israel refuses to collect data on the number of people it has killed. This permits Israeli authorities to cast doubt on casualty figures published by the Gaza Health Ministry. Though the report shows that Israeli leaders – including Benjamin Netanyahu himself – have frequently confirmed the numbers given as accurate, Hasson says, “Local media outlets usually note that the source of such data is ‘Hamas’ Ministry of Health.'”
Martyrs and injured individuals have arrived at The Baptist Hospital following an Israeli attack on Shaaban Al-Rayes School, east of Al-Shaaf neighborhood.
شهداء ومصابون وصلوا إلى مستشفى المعمداني بعد استهداف إسرائيلي لمدرسة شعبان الريس شرق حي الشجاعية. pic.twitter.com/iWx3MaiKDv
— حسام شبات (@HossamShabat) December 19, 2024
As Hasson points out, “A perusal of Mordechai’s report helps to disperse the fog that has blanketed Israelis since the war broke out.”
This fog of war is intentionally created in Israeli and in international media to make the obvious doubtful, or even invisible. Mordechai’s report continues to be updated with video and text accounts of a genocide in progress.
From the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza:
مخيم جباليا بعد أسابيع من بدء العملية والعدوان الإسرائيلي المكثف
تظهر حجم الدمار الواسع في مخيم جباليا pic.twitter.com/IV2zddIAUw
— حسام شبات (@HossamShabat) December 13, 2024
There is no reason to doubt his work. It is a question of whether people are willing to see what is happening, in the here and now, or whether Israel’s actions in Gaza will finally be witnessed only in hindsight.
#Breaking
A few minutes ago, Dr. Hossam Abu Safia wrote on his Instagram account:
“Right now, the occupation army is detonating booby-trapped robots around the hospital and demanding the immediate and complete evacuation of the hospital.” pic.twitter.com/DDKkAwFCH9
— حسام شبات (@HossamShabat) December 21, 2024
As Mordecai said himself, this is what is known. His report has replaced doubt with documented evidence. To say we did not know is now a choice for which we will one day have to answer.
The latest revision of the full document “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War” is available here.
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