When the occupation kills the truth twice, first with shells and then with cancer

In the beginning was the word, and in the end, the poisoned rubble has become the only text that future generations of Gaza will read in the book of silent extermination.

The occupation has transcended the limits of conventional warfare to wage a complex chemical war targeting the genetic map of the Palestinian people, leaving their bodies as conduits for malignant tumors.

It is not only instant death that the occupation records in its lists of casualties; it is also deferred death that creeps through the air, water, and debris of destroyed buildings.

From the forests of Vietnam that burned from Agent Orange to the orchards of Gaza that burned from white phosphorus, the chemistry of empires repeats, but the difference here is that the victim is besieged with no escape from the cloud of toxins.

In recent years, particularly since the repeated aggression starting October 7, Gaza has witnessed a terrifying increase in cases of rare cancers, repeated miscarriages, and deaths without clear medical diagnoses.

The doctors in Gaza who have defied the siege found no explanation for the multiplication of lymphatic tumors and blood cancers among children other than the presence of carcinogenic materials in the dust of the bombs dropped by planes, along with internationally prohibited white phosphorus that burns the skin to the bone and penetrates cells, leaving behind cancerous scars. It is no longer used merely as a tactical weapon, but has become a tool for embedding genes through generations.

With it are depleted uranium and dense inert metal explosives that grind tissues into minute inhalable particles, turning the lungs into a laboratory for tumor production.

This toxic arsenal is not merely a military overreach; it is the execution of a systematic policy called pathological geography, where the place you inhabit becomes a breeding ground for slow death.

However, the evidence of this crime does not remain long on the ground; as soon as the guns fall silent, the occupation's bulldozers begin a parallel operation of clearing the targeted buildings and leveling neighborhoods to the ground under the pretext of searching for tunnels or weapons.

In the logic of the occupation's security, a building that was bombed with carcinogenic materials becomes a piece of evidence to be removed; thus, the demolition machines roll up their sleeves to erase the crime scene before investigators can reach it. This systematic demolition is not just a transient engineering act; it is a deliberate erasure of evidence that amounts to a crime of concealing the traces of war crimes.

International humanitarian law, in Article 35 of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, restricts means of combat and prohibits weapons that cause unnecessary damages or excessive suffering.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court considers the use of poison or poisoned weapons a war crime, and it criminalizes launching attacks knowing they will cause widespread and long-term damage to the natural environment.

The Chemical Weapons Convention absolutely prohibits the development, production, and use of toxic chemicals, and under the jurisdiction of the international court, resorting to carcinogenic materials with creeping effects falls under this prohibition.

The destruction of buildings to erase the traces of these materials constitutes an additional violation of the occupying power's duty to protect public health and to avoid the destruction of property without urgent military necessity, as stipulated in Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

More dangerously, the razing of neighborhoods deprives victims of their right to collect samples and prove the causal relationship between the weapon used and the rampant disease, obstructing any future judicial path. Before this compounded crime stands the international community in a state of ethical resuscitation, watching silently and complicit in the process of burying evidence.

What is required is not new statements of condemnation, but an independent international commission emanating from the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, equipped with experts in forensic medicine and environmental toxins, granted immediate and unconditional access to Gaza.

This commission must collect samples of soil, water, and human tissues from hospitals collapsing under the weight of the wounded and analyze the debris of buildings before the bulldozers consume them.

The commission should interrogate the soldiers and military personnel who have operated in the sector and examine ammunition records and export licenses to identify the source of the carcinogenic materials and their supply chain.

The Nuremberg Trials have taught us that following superior orders does not absolve one of criminal responsibility and that political immunity does not cover the crimes of slow extermination. Palestine is not a laboratory for experiments of death nor a graveyard for international law.

Allowing the occupation to assassinate the truth twice, once with chemical weapons and once by demolishing the walls that contained it, means proclaiming the bankruptcy of the global legal system and turning the United Nations Charter into meaningless rhetoric.

The soil of Gaza will remain in the custody of history until the justice investigators emerge from the rubble to deliver their verdict, so the final word would be for the court, not the bulldozer.