Amnesty International Launches Online Tool Mapping Exposing Israeli Attacks in Gaza
Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture has launched an investigative online tool mapping Israeli attacks in Gaza during the conflict of July and August 2014.
The mapping tools aimed to push accountability for war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law.
The Gaza Platform enables the user to explore and analyse data about Israel’s 2014 military operation in Gaza. The preliminary data currently plotted on the Platform, which will be updated over the coming months, already highlights a number of patterns in the attacks by Israeli forces that indicate that grave and systemic violations were committed.
The Platform records the time and location of each attack on an interactive map and classifies it according to numerous criteria including type of attack, site struck and number of casualties to highlight patterns. Photos, videos, eyewitness testimony and satellite imagery for attacks are also included where available. With the help of new data visualization and digital mapping technology, users can view and search this information to detect patterns in the Israeli forces’ conduct during the conflict. The aim is to identify and publicize patterns which can help in the analysis of whether particular attacks constitute violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes.
The launch of the Platform is just the start of the project – it will be updated with new information as work to gather further evidence relating to the conflict continues.
Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme said;
“The Gaza Platform is the most comprehensive record of attacks during the 2014 conflict to date. It allows us to piece together more than 2,500 individual attacks, illustrating the vast scale of destruction caused by Israel’s military operations in Gaza during the 50-day war last summer”.