The New Arab Book Club: ‘Gaza’s Gravediggers’ argues that international institutions and rights groups failed to classify Israel’s genocide in Gaza, exposing complicity. Ramona Wadi 22 July, 2026

Israel’s genocide in Gaza is heavily dependent upon rhetorical obfuscation of facts. From the highest echelons of international institutions and their officials to international human rights organisations, Palestinians in Gaza have been betrayed on several levels.

Norman Finkelstein’s latest book, Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places (OR Books, 2026) meticulously dissects reports and rhetoric to expose a corrupt web of impunity — one which would shame the UN, were it not an instrument of enabling, rather than preventing, Israel’s colonial violence.

Finkelstein commences with historical and political details that place Gaza under continuous scrutiny.

Noting Gaza’s obliteration since October 2023, Finkelstein writes, “But since Gaza emerged as a distinct entity after Israel’s ethnic cleansing in 1948, it’s always been a forbidding place.”

This detail in the book’s prologue is a stark reminder of how Gaza is perpetually portrayed. The more Gaza was portrayed as isolated, the easier it was for Israel to launch its periodic bombardments, which, as the author notes, each “typically picked up where the last one left off except at a qualitatively higher level of death and destruction.”

While Israel carried out its periodic ethnic cleansing, it was also able to sustain its narrative of Hamas as a threat, despite its attempts at diplomacy, cooperation with international law and endorsing popular peaceful resistance.

“By 2023, Gaza had vanished from the stage of international politics,” Finkelstein writes.

Yet what happened since October 2023 would see the continuation of an international endeavour that protected not only Israel’s fabricated security narrative, but also its genocide in Gaza.

From false claims to mellowing genocide into war and violations, international institutions and human rights organisations carried out a large-scale diminishing of Israel’s genocidal atrocities and promoted fabricated claims and assertions, even as the evidence inside Gaza continued to pile up.

One example is the UN’s endorsement in a 2024 report of Israel’s very early, unfounded claim that Hamas used rape as a weapon of war on 7 October 2023.

Finkelstein notes that contrary to Israel’s usual refusal to cooperate with UN officials, this mission, headed by Pramila Patten, enjoyed “full cooperation” from Israeli officials.

The team met with some released Israeli captives but not with any Palestinian survivors of alleged Israeli sexual violence. Israel, which lent its support to the Patten mission, did not give any evidence of mass rape.

Analysing Israel’s genocide in UN reports also followed the institution’s usual practice of providing evidence and diluting it for Israel’s benefit.

With terms such as “counter-offensive” used to describe Israel’s actions, alleged neutrality wrote the script in Israel’s favour.

Rhetoric to describe Israel’s military operation exceeding limits does not lend itself to a categorical assertion of Israel committing genocide.

While the Commission, on occasion, did assert that Israel’s destruction of Gaza was on several occasions void of “legitimate military target”, Israel was held to the parameters of the laws of war, which is far from Israel’s objective.

Finkelstein describes the rules of proportionality in war and states, “But military objects in a genocide are ultimately beside the point while the destruction of civilian objects is the whole point.”

Meanwhile, the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry led by Navi Pillay found credible evidence that Israel had perpetrated rape and sexual violence.

“Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination and carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities,” the report stated.

At the International Court of Justice in 2024, Finkelstein draws upon the blatant reproduction of Israel’s propaganda by highlighting the input of Ugandan Judge Julia Sebutinde, who claimed that Israel-Palestine is a political, not legal, conflict, that South Africa failed to produce evidence of Israel plausibly committing genocide, and that therefore the ICJ cannot stipulate provisional measures against genocide.

Finkelstein provides detailed omissions from Judge Sebutinde’s claims, while documenting her stances throughout the case filed by South Africa.

This shows her as first dissenting, then agreeing with the provisional measures in March, which were already indicated earlier in January, only to revert to a pro-Israeli stance in May over the Israeli assault on Rafah.

In the epilogue, which is followed by a postscript on the aberration of the UN Security Council voting for US President Donald Trump’s 20-Point Plan in November 2025, Finkelstein writes that the book “was written to expose lies and restore truth.”

Gaza’s Gravediggers does considerably more than that. It is not merely a chronicle of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, but an examination of the institutional architecture that rendered that destruction politically and legally sustainable.

From UN reports and international courts to the language of human rights organisations, the book traces how evidence was qualified, legal standards diluted and genocide reframed as a “war” governed by proportionality rather than a project of elimination.

Finkelstein writes that, “After 17 November 2025, the UN is a rotting corpse.”

The force of his argument demonstrates that impunity is sustained not by military power alone but by the institutions that claim to uphold international law while failing to confront its most egregious violations.

Gaza’s Gravediggers is, ultimately, an indictment of those institutions and of the language through which they transformed accountability into accommodation.

Ramona Wadi is a freelance journalist and book reviewer. Her writing covers a range of themes related to Palestine, Chile, and Latin America

Follow her on X: @walzerscent