The architecture of extermination: Why the Gaza genocide is premeditated and repeatable |
Suppose we accept the fiction that none of us expected Israel to launch a full-scale genocide in Gaza—a premeditated campaign to erase the Strip and exterminate a significant portion of its inhabitants. Let us pretend that nearly eighty years of relentless massacres were not a prelude to this moment, and that Israel had never before sought the physical destruction of the Palestinian people as outlined by the 1948 Genocide Convention.
If we go so far as to accept the sterile, ahistoric claim that the Nakba of 1948 was “merely” ethnic cleansing rather than genocide—ignoring the mass graves and the forced erasure of a civilisation—we are still left with a terrifying reality. Having witnessed the unmasked extermination that began on 7 October 2023, who can dare to argue that its perpetrators lack the intent to repeat it?
The question itself is an act of charity, as it assumes the genocide has actually stopped. In reality, the carnage has merely shifted tactics. Since the implementation of the fragile ceasefire on 10 October, Israel has killed over 400 Palestinians and wounded hundreds more. Others have perished in the frozen mud of their tents. They include infants like eight-month-old Fahar Abu Jazar, who, like others, froze to death. These are not mere tragedies; they are the inevitable results of a calculated Israeli policy of destruction targeting the most vulnerable.
During this two-year campaign of extermination, more than 20,000........