The necropolitics of Gaza: Architectures of controlled space, surveillance, and the logic of psychological torture

Abstract

Introduction: This article examines Israel’s surveillance architecture in Gaza as a modality of coercive governance, assessing when and how digitally mediated practices may meet elements of torture under the UN Convention against Torture (UNCAT). The analysis is situated within debates on necropolitics, panopticism, and surveillance.

Materials and Methods: We conduct a doctrinal review of UNCAT Article 1, triangulating NGO investigations, legal filings, and investigative journalism with scholarship on surveillance and trauma.

Results: Reported systems—facial-recognition programs, large data-fusion databases, spyware, and persistent aerial surveillance—create conditions of continuous visibility and anticipatory threat. Testimonies and clinical reports describe hypervigilance, sleep disruption, depressive symptoms, and other markers of severe mental suffering, alongside state-actor involvement and asserted purposes (intimidation, coercion, punishment). Corroboration varies by source, but evidence converges on patterned psychological harm linked to surveillance exposure.

Discussion: On the record reviewed, Gaza’s surveillance practices plausibly satisfy UNCAT’s severity, state-involvement, and purpose elements, with intent inferred from design and deployment patterns; definitive legal determinations rest with competent tribunals.

Recommendations: We recommend independent monitoring with unimpeded access, standardized documentation of surveillance-related mental harm, export-control due diligence for military-AI systems, and safeguards against indiscriminate datafication in conflict zones.