Eyal Weizman

In the course of the eight-day aerial bombardment of Gaza by Israel – using drones, F-16s and Apache helicopters – more than 1350 buildings were hit. They included military depots, which are considered legitimate targets under international humanitarian law. But the police stations, TV stations, a local healthcare centre, ministries, road tunnels and a bridge that were also...

The investigation into the cause of Arafat’s death began with his famed keffiyeh, the one he had with him on 29 October 2004, when he left Palestine for medical treatment in France after suddenly falling ill. In the summer of 2012 it was one of a few items, along with a toothbrush and underwear, handed over for analysis to the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne by Arafat’s widow, Suha. The Swiss scientists found that the items contained traces of the radioactive poison polonium 210, and that November, in a process directed by the Palestinian Authority, a pathologist exhumed Arafat’s grave in Ramallah. Sixty samples from his remains and the surrounding parts of his tomb were distributed to three forensic teams: one Russian, one Swiss, one French.

Now​ that Gaza’s perimeter is completely sealed – by fences on land and the Israeli navy at sea – the axis of conflict has turned 90 degrees. Each new Israeli bombing campaign – in 2008-9, 2012, 2014 and May 2021 – has pushed Palestinian resistance deeper underground, to extend and fortify its elaborate system of tunnels. The deaths of more than five thousand...