A letter to the editor examines the United Nations Genocide Convention and arguments made by South Africa, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and architect Eyal Weizman concerning the destruction of homes, hospitals, water systems and other life-sustaining infrastructure in Gaza.
Dear Editor, The United Nations Genocide Convention includes "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part" among the acts that can constitute genocide. South Africa made this specific prohibition central to its case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. While a final ruling on the merits may take years, the ICJ has already ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts forbidden under the Convention. Physicians for Human Rights Israel issued a July 2025 report titled Destruction of Conditions of Life: A Health Analysis of the Gaza Genocide. It concludes: "Though Israel has cited military necessity...the scale, pattern, and nature of the operations, as well as accompanying statements, indicate a broader policy aimed at destroying Palestinian society in Gaza and making the enclave uninhabitable." The report argues that the targeted destruction of hospitals, obstruction of medical aid, and the killing and detention of over 1,800 health care workers reveal a "deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza's health and life-sustaining systems." Israeli architect Eyal Weizman makes a related argument in his 2026 book, Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide. Weizman documents how Israel's demolition of Gaza has made the territory unrecognizable and unlivable. Weizman describes Gaza’s systematic destruction: “[M]ost of the Gaza Strip—cities, refugee camps, schools, universities, mosques, the health infrastructure, agriculture, wells and the soil itself—has been destroyed and made toxic by bombs, artillery, tank shells and sappers [combat engineers].” He adds that “the most systematic destruction was caused by D9 bulldozers made by the US company Caterpillar.” An Israeli bulldozer operator in Gaza says that if Palestinians return to where their homes stood, “All they will find is sand.” As Weizman puts it, "Ungrounding...aims to remove a society from its place and erase all traces to its previous existence." When hospitals, homes, water systems, farmland, and even the soil are systematically destroyed, this is not collateral damage. It is the deliberate creation of conditions for the impossibility of life and must be confronted for what it is: genocide.
Terry Hansen
Grafton, WI
Grafton, WI
Terry Hansen is a retired educator from Grafton, WI, who writes frequently about climate change and on human rights. He lives in Grafton, WIsconsin.
