Forensic Architecture

Often, the individual incidents that we investigate are part of a wider pattern. Identification of such a pattern can support the assertion that a set of singular abuses or violations of human rights, taken together, are in fact by nature ‘widespread and systematic’—an important standard in a variety of human rights law contexts.

In such a context, pattern analysis can reveal changing trends in the frequency and distribution of certain kinds of violence, and of the targets and casualties of that violence. The larger the dataset, the more reliable and coherent the pattern that might emerge.

I.112  The Index of Repression

Updated 25 Feb 2026
Date of Incident
2019 – Ongoing
Location
Germany
Forums
Legal Process, Web Platform
Commissioned By
European Legal Support Center (ELSC)
Summary
For decades, across Europe and the US, acts of solidarity with Palestine have been silenced by states, and by institutions. Since the genocide in Gaza escalated, from October 2023 onwards, incidents of repression have increased across civil society. The Index presents data collected by the ELSC, drawing patterns between almost 2,000 such incidents, in the UK and Germany.

I.109  A Cartography of Genocide: Israel's Conduct in Gaza since October 2023

Updated 08 Oct 2025
Date of Incident
07 Oct 2023 – Ongoing
Location
Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories
Forums
Legal Process, Web Platform
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
Since October 2023, we have closely monitored Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the resulting extensive civilian harm. Comprehensive cartographic analysis, published as a web platform and in-depth report, reveals patterns of violence which indicate a systematic and organised campaign to destroy life, conditions necessary for life, and life-sustaining infrastructure.

I.116  The Architecture of Genocidal Starvation

Date of Incident
18 Mar 2025 – 01 Aug 2025
Location
Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories
Forums
United Nations, Parliamentary Inquiry
In Partnership With
World Peace Foundation
Summary
A ceasefire is not enough. The Israeli military’s weaponisation of aid and starvation to displace and destroy Palestinian society will not stop as long as Israel controls aid distribution. We show how Israel has imposed a deadly aid system through GHF ration stations, while dismantling a proven civilian-led model, to concentrate Palestinians in Rafah and push Gazan society toward collapse.

Israel's Destruction of the Port of Gaza

Date
October 2023 – January 2024
Summary
Gaza’s historic port was repeatedly attacked and progressively destroyed by Israeli forces between October 2023 and January 2024, along with the majority of Palestinian fishing vessels docked within it. FA was commissioned to establish a timeline of visual evidence of the port’s destruction, including the destruction of two fishing vessels belonging to the Al-Hassi family.

I.110  The Evros/Meriç River: A Century of Border Design

Date of Incident
1926 – 2025
Location
Evros/Meriç river, Greece/Turkey
Forums
Web Platform
In Partnership With
Self-Initiated
Summary
First drawn a century ago, the border that separates Greece from Turkey along the Evros/Meriç river at the EU’s southeastern frontier is deadlier and more opaque than ever. FA/Forensis built an interactive platform that unpacks this complex and lethal border infrastructure, and examines the present-day condition of the border against the transformation of the river landscape over the past century.

Attacks on Aid in Gaza: Preliminary Findings

Date
08 Oct 2023 – 25 Apr 2024
Summary
As part of an in-depth investigation into Israel’s attacks on aid in Gaza since October 2023, we are releasing a series of preliminary findings and a map of the attacks we have documented to date. Our analysis shows the systematic targeting of civilians seeking aid, aid infrastructure, aid convoys, and personnel responsible for aid distribution.

I.100  Humanitarian Violence in Gaza

Date of Incident
07 Oct 2023 – Ongoing
Location
Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories
Forums
Legal Process, Human Rights Report, Web Platform
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
Since 7 October 2023, the Israeli military has abused and weaponised humanitarian measures such as ‘evacuation orders’, ‘safe routes’, and ‘safe zones’ to facilitate the systematic mass displacement of the Palestinian civilian population toward the southern border of Gaza.

I.99  An Assessment of Visual Material Presented by the Israeli Legal Team at the ICJ

Date of Incident
12 Jan 2024
Location
—
Forums
Legal Process
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
Forensic Architecture’s analysis of the visual material presented by the Israeli legal team at the ICJ hearing on 12 January 2024 found multiple instances of misrepresentation, mislabelling, and misleading descriptions.

I.84  Drift-backs in the Aegean Sea

Date of Incident
March 2020 – Ongoing
Location
Aegean Sea
Forums
Legal Process, Human Rights Report, Media, Parliamentary Inquiry, Web Platform
In Partnership With
Forensis
Summary
Asylum seekers crossing the Aegean Sea are intercepted within Greek waters or arrested after they arrive on Greek shores, beaten, stripped of their possessions, and then forcefully loaded onto life rafts and left to drift back to the Turkish coast. FA/Forensis verified and mapped evidence for over 2000 such ‘drift-backs’, demonstrating the scale of this violent and illegal border defence practice.

I.97  Destruction of Medical Infrastructure in Gaza

Date of Incident
07 Oct 2023 – Ongoing
Location
Gaza, Palestine
Forums
Legal Process, United Nations, Human Rights Report, Media, Web Platform
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
Since 7 October 2023, we have aggregated news reports of Israeli military attacks on medical infrastructure in Gaza. Our analysis suggests that hospitals in Gaza have been subjected to a pattern of intimidation, direct targeting, siege, and occupation by the Israeli military over the course of the 2023 invasion.

I.92  'Tear Gas Tuesday' in Downtown Portland

Date of Incident
02 Jun 2020
Location
Portland, Oregon, USA
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition, Media
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
Over the summer of 2020, Portland's police force deployed large amounts of tear gas to suppress local demonstrations against racialised police violence. Focusing on a single representative day—2 June 2020—we simulated the path of the toxic tear gas clouds as they spread widely across the city centre, demonstrating that the concentration levels were in serious excess of recognised safe thresholds.

I.84  Gold Mining and Violence in the Amazon Rainforest

Date of Incident
2019 – Ongoing
Location
Yanomami Territory
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
The Climate Litigation Accelerator (CLX)
Summary
This investigation demonstrates how the Bolsonaro administration’s policies led directly to a rapid spread of destructive gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon and increasing violence against Indigenous communities.

I.75  The Black Boxes of Disappearance: Enforced Disappearance in the Siege of the Palace of Justice

Date of Incident
06 Nov 1985 – 07 Nov 1985
Location
Bogotá, Colombia
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition, Media, Truth Commission, Web Platform
Commissioned By
The Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition of Colombia
Summary
Our investigation examines the actions of the Colombian security forces in the aftermath of the 1985 siege of the Palace of Justice that resulted in the enforced disappearance of cafeteria workers, students, visitors, guerrillas, and judges.

I.72  Environmental Racism in Death Alley, Louisiana

Date of Incident
1718 – Ongoing
Location
'Death Alley', Louisiana, USA
Forums
Legal Process, United Nations, Exhibition, Media, Web Platform
In Partnership With
RISE St. James
Summary
A stretch of the Mississippi River once called 'Plantation Country' is now the 'Petrochemical Corridor', known to those who breathe its toxic air as 'Death Alley'. Using advanced techniques in cartography and fluid dynamics, we worked to support local demands for accountability and reparations.

I.71  European Arms in the Bombing of Yemen

Date of Incident
26 Mar 2015 – Ongoing
Location
Yemen
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition, Human Rights Report, Web Platform
Commissioned By
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
Summary
Since 2015, airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen have constituted grave human rights violations. Partners across the Investigative Commons developed an interactive map to reveal the extent to which arms producers and governments in Europe continue to profit from arms exports despite evidence of their substantial contribution to the military operations of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

I.68  NSO Group’s Breach of Private Data with ‘Fleming’, a COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Software

Date of Incident
01 Mar 2020 – ongoing
Location
Israel and around the world
Forums
Exhibition, Media
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
In May 2020, an unprotected database belonging to Israeli cyber-weapons manufacturer NSO Group’s COVID-19 contact tracing software called 'Fleming' was left exposed. NSO denied there was a security breach. Forensic Architecture analysed a sample of the exposed database, which suggested that the data was based on ‘real’ personal data belonging to unsuspecting civilians.

I.60  Police Brutality at the Black Lives Matter Protests

Date of Incident
25 May 2020 – Ongoing
Location
Minneapolis, MN and across the US
Forums
United Nations, Web Platform
In Partnership With
Bellingcat
Summary
Protests against racialized police violence have swept the US, following the killings of George Floyd and others. Those protests have themselves been met with egregious brutality by police. With Bellingcat, we built a comprehensive archive of that systemic violence, to support accountability efforts.

I.59  Pushbacks in Melilla: ND and NT v. Spain

Date of Incident
13 Aug 2014
Location
Melilla, Spain
Forums
Legal Process, Media
In Partnership With
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
Summary
The case of ND and NT v. Spain was the first trial at the European Court of Human Rights to address pushbacks at Europe’s land borders. The Court’s decision to acquit Spain was based on a gross distortion of facts. Using data from asylum applications and spatial analysis, we demonstrate that no legal routes to ask for protection are available to Black migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa.

I.28  The Enforced Disappearance of the Ayotzinapa Students

Date of Incident
26 Sep 2014 – 27 Sep 2014
Location
Iguala, Mexico
Forums
Exhibition, Media, Web Platform
Commissioned By
Centro Prodh, Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense, EAAF
Summary
When Mexican police and local organised crime coordinated to attack a group of students, six people were murdered, forty wounded and forty-three 'disappeared'. We built an interactive platform to explore what happened that night, and to expose the inconsistencies in the state’s investigation of its own involvement in one of the most shocking moments of violence in the history of modern Mexico.

I.25  Ecocide in Indonesia

Date of Incident
01 Jun 2015 – 01 Oct 2015
Location
Kalimantan and Sumatra, Indonesia
Forums
Exhibition
Commissioned By
FIBGAR - Fundación Internacional Baltasar Garzón
Summary
In Kalimantan and Sumatra, fires consumed over 21,000sq. km of forest and farmland in 2015. Combining fieldwork with satellite image analysis, we established that drainage and ‘monocropping’ by agricultural corporations were direct causes, supporting calls for recognition of a new crime: ecocide.

I.14  Pattrn: Open source software for citizen-driven mapping

Date of Incident
n/a
Location
—
Forums
Web Platform
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Summary
PATTRN is an open-source software developed by Forensic Architecture to support participatory, real-time, citizen-led mapping in conflict zones.

I.15  The Bombing of Rafah

Date of Incident
08 Jul 2014 – 26 Aug 2014
Location
Rafah, Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories
Forums
Exhibition, Human Rights Report, Media
Commissioned By
Amnesty International
Summary
When an Israeli soldier was captured and taken into the tunnels below Rafah, the full force of Israel’s military was unleashed. Using smartphone footage and satellite imagery, we mapped the destruction as over two thousand munitions were fired into the city in a single day.

I.13  The Gaza Platform: Israel's 2014 offensive

Date of Incident
08 Jul 2014 – 26 Aug 2014
Location
Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories
Forums
Web Platform
Commissioned By
Amnesty International
Summary
Over 2000 people died in under 2 months during the Israeli assault on Gaza. Working with local and international NGOs, we built a platform to map almost 3000 individual events, creating a public repository of testimony and data about the offensive—and a template for documenting future conflicts.

I.7  The Drone Strikes Platform

Date of Incident
01 Nov 2014 – 01 Nov 2014
Location
Federally Administered Tribal Area, Pakistan
Forums
United Nations, Media, Web Platform
Commissioned By
Bureau of Investigative Journalism
Summary
Civilian homes were the target of sixty-one percent of all reported drone strikes conducted by the CIA in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas between 2004 and 2014. We turned a database of those strikes, compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, into an interactive cartography.

I.10  Drone Strike in Miranshah

Date of Incident
30 Mar 2012
Location
Miranshah, Pakistan
Forums
United Nations, Exhibition, Media, Web Platform
Commissioned By
UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights
Summary
Video footage of the aftermath of a drone strike that killed four people was smuggled across siege lines before being broadcast on MSNBC. We analysed the footage frame-by-frame to confirm the location of the building, the consequences of the strike, and the munition used.

I.6  Genocide in the Ixil Triangle

Date of Incident
01 Jan 1978 – 01 Jan 1983
Location
Quiché, Guatemala
Forums
Legal Process, Web Platform
Commissioned By
CALDH – Centro para la Acción Legal en Derechos Humanos
Summary
The genocide of the Ixil people was accompanied by widespread deforestation and environmental violence. We analysed and traced the state’s simple logic: control the Ixil through the destruction of the conditions on which their ways of life depended.