who wants to change his chosen profession. he works in what he calls forensic architecture, where details of buildings and physical spaces — and their destruction — are used to highlight abuses and persecution. is he right to see architecture as political — a way in which human beings can oppress as well as create? eyal weizman, welcome to hardtalk. your organisation is called forensic architecture. let's begin with you telling us what the essence of it is. what is it about? forensic architecture is an organisation that provides architectural evidence in international forums, in tribunals

and international courts. we present evidence in the media and also in exhibitions. in fact, we are... we have emerged through an understanding that so much of contemporary conflict happened in cities. and when conflict happen in cities, buildings and built environment become evidence for the crimes that are committed by the belligerent, by the militaries in them. so you could read the building in an analogous way to reading a dead body. you read the wound, you read a trace, and you start to reconstruct what has happened in this place from traces left in a built environment. it's an unusual way to look at architecture. yes, i studied architecture here and... in london? in london, at the architectural association, and realised that the skill set of

architects, what we know, what we learn, the kind of abilities that we have to look at a built environment, to model it, to simulate phenomena within it, are so useful to reconstruct incidents that happened in conflict zones and in other places, and that, in fact, one way to make sure that our skill is used politically — and when i say that, i mean for the sake ofjustice — is to employ our skills not only in order to design new environments, but to use the very same tools, the very same software that an architect would use — would employ in order to design a building, a living room, a cafe, a restaurant, a high—rise tower — in order to analyse, in order to understand the world around us. and that provides a really unique set of information. but i wonder if you're also saying that, to some extent,

all architecture is political, that there are choices — some we make, some that are imposed on us, on our use of space — where we are allowed to be, the way we build the walls around us. yeah, because human behaviour — and i'm speaking in general, no? our movement through space, the way in which space is allocated, the way it is divided, how much access you have to a place, what is the size of the space under your control, and what is the space you're excluded from — are actions that happen in space. and architects are those people that design space. and when you design and partition space, you exclude and include people, and you are able to exercise a social and political agenda. therefore, to be able to understand it, to be able to analyse it, to be able to actually provide evidence based on architectural facts,

allow a different way of understanding conflict. did some of where you are stem from the place in which you were born? you were born in israel. i think you started your architectural practice in a pretty conventional way. then you did a phd on settlements in the occupied territories? is that — was that the starting point for where you are now? i guess there are multiple starting points but, indeed, when i was an architectural student, i went and volunteered at the palestinian ministry of planning because i realised, having grown in palestine, in israel, we have been subjected to a form of spatial control that is kind of unparalleled. if you are travelling, anyone that would travel through palestine these days, in the occupied territories, withinjerusalem, in the galilee, in the negev, through the cities,

would realise that the way that israel has designed spaces is continuous with its policy of displacing palestinians and containing the movement, of colonising their spaces, of building settlements, military bases, roads and all sorts of infrastructure in an unjust way. when you grow up in an environment like that, you understand and you start seeing architecture differently. you founded forensic architecture in 2011, i think, and your work has been — well, it's looked very far back in time since, including to colonial times in namibia — what is now namibia — but also in different parts of the world. police killings in europe, a theatre bombed by russia in ukraine, gold mining in the amazon rainforest. give us an idea of the lens at which you look at those places, those instances,

and what practical use you think those investigations can be. yeah — so initially, i would say that the traces of policies, politics and incidents by governments, by police forces, by secret services, are left on the built environment to be read. and then, so in that way, you're looking at the architectural trace. but when we started in 2011, there was another technological environment that we came upon, and that was the open—source revolution. people started having phones with cameras at their disposal, and the social media platform to upload and make those materials circulate, and all of a sudden, we were exposed to an enormous amount of images and videos that were simply not available to us previously.

you didn't need to rely on a photojournalist to go to the pakistan—afghanistan frontier to document the results of american or cia drone strikes in there. you would — you could just go online, collect the videos and analyse them. but we realised that in order to analyse those bits, fragments of media, we needed to build them into architectural environment. and at this moment, we had the architectural technique to build dynamic three—dimensional models and locate within them multiple perspectives of different phone cameras or video cameras. and then you can see the relation between those. but sometimes — didn't you even do it? i'm thinking about the project you did on the prison in syria near damascus, where, actually, there was no video evidence. yeah. in fact, the site was unknown.

i think there weren't even necessarily satellite mapping of it. absolutely, absolutely. so what were the skills that you employed? because you were trying to essentially recreate a prison based on what detainees said. on their memory. in prison, there are no cameras and videos. and then you have to rely on what people say, on their testimonies. and our memory is relying on space. our memory is very spatial. i mean, you know this yourself. you go to a place where you've been and all of a sudden, memories that are associated with that space spring up. and the same is with giving testimony. most of the people that are delivering testimonies are also very traumatised because they are asked to describe the most difficult events that they've experienced in their lives. so memory plays tricks on you — there are blackouts and there are distortions. and we've worked very carefully with forensic psychologists at the forensic psychology unit

at goldsmiths, in particular, to develop a system that allows witnesses to recall things that are otherwise — they would have forgotten. the prisoners in saydnaya — this is the syrian torture prison outside of damascus, where political prisoners were held by the assad government — were denied... what is called sensory deprivation. they were held in darkness. whenever the guards entered into the room, they had to be blindfolded or press their eyes against their... their hands against their eyes. and then what was activated was their sense of hearing. and the sense of hearing is also spatial. a small room would echo, and the sounds would reverberate in a different way than a corridor or a room with a high ceiling. so through partial visual

memories — the number of tiles, through the audio analysis which we've done with a very close collaborator of us, the organisation called earshot — we were able to estimate the architecture of that secret torture prison. you end up with what you would say is a credible picture, a creation, a representation of the prison. what is it for, what use will it be? so, you know, we understand the term forensics maybe slightly differently than the way it is commonly used. in fact, we want to go back to the roman or latin origin of the term — forensics is the art of the forum. and the forum is not only the court, it is making evidence public and it's the making evidence public, indeed, can be presented in court in defence of people's human rights.

so one day you hope for a war—crimes trial or something of that kind and you would hope that your work on syria's used in that? absolutely. i mean, the work in syria has already provided information that was used by other lawyers in a war—crime trial on syria, and we participated in many international trials worldwide, providing evidence in multiple ways. i mean, architecture can do different things. it can allow you, it can become a trigger into your memory when you walk through it. architectural models allow us to locate and synchronise multiple videos. architecture is the bearer of trace. you can analyse the rubble like an archaeologist, analyse the destruction from hundreds or thousand years ago and try to imagine from the rubble what happened there. i know that your work with the family of mark duggan, who was shot and killed in london was used by the family, and was part

of their out—of—court settlement with the metropolitan police. you've made some enemies in the course of your work. there's some quite striking criticism — whether it's german politicians saying that you're factually challenged or people around president assad saying that you're qatari stooges. you were banned, i think, from travelling to the us for some time. yes, when you... you know, all our works are targeting state agencies — military, the police, secret services — these are powerful organisations. and, of course, they would want to argue against what we are going to say. and one of the easiest way to do that is to try to undermine the credibility of what it is that you do, rather than discuss the evidence itself. so we are used to that. you know, we've been called a fake—news organisation by the russian government, by the syrian government — indeed, also sometimes

by israeli spokespersons when we are exposing their crimes. so this is part of the game. we would take a case only if the family — or the bereaved family — would approach. this is what happened in the case of mark duggan. the family and the lawyers representing the family asked us to do that. this is trust that is put into us that we respond to by enormous amount of care and attention. so imagine a second—and—a—half talk between mark duggan leaving the minicab in which he was driving, or being driven, followed by the police force until he got shot the second time. a second—and—a—half — to work on a second—and—a—half you sometimes need a year, so you work for a year on a second. that's an incredible kind of, like, compression of time, if you like. well, who funds you to do such labour—intensive work? yes, so we have research funding.

so, ukri is the government sort of research body that gives us a good chunk of our research, human rights organisations. but increasingly, also — and this is something that is very unique of forensic architecture — we present our evidence also in art and cultural forms. so we had exhibitions at the tate, at the whitney museum, at the whitworth in the uk, the institute of contemporary art, because we believe that we need to make our evidence public. we need to present it not only within the bureaucratic confines of the law, but we need to — if you want to make evidence political, you need it to be seen by the wider community. i still wonder, then, whether it is more art and activism than architecture. architecture is, isn't it, at its heart, about creating something? whereas a lot of your work seems to be about pulling it apart. yeah, that is very interesting. yeah, deconstruction

rather than construction. but i think that the strength of our team is its multidisciplinary nature. so most of the team are architects because they are able to understand spatial relation. but we work with lawyers — our team have lawyers — journalists are working with us, they're film—makers because a lot of the work is filmic. and even archaeologists, when we're working on more historical material, like reconstruction of historical archaeological sites... the application of our technique has now become useful for archaeological research. we've done digital archaeology in ukraine, and we've done in gaza something that we call open—source archaeology. reconstructing one of the most fabulous sites of historical significance in gaza — the old port of gaza — and it was completely

demolished during this... it was completely demolished in november this year. yeah, i know that you are connected in more than one way to october 7th and the subsequent war, and you've had people you've long worked with in gaza. what do you see when you look at the conflict? are you still working on a specific project to do with it? mm — well, since october, it has been the hardest time for our group. we've experienced things both personally and emotionally in a way that was extremely difficult. the volume of our work on gaza has increased, and it's a situation that we see as a genocide, and that puts an enormous amount of responsibility on us to work in order to do anything that we can. you're an israeli and you're

calling it a genocide — which is, of course, what the israeli government would reject, and many fellow israeli citizens would reject also. of course they would reject it because they've been accused of genocide and the fact that i was born in israel, i think, allows me to understand the society in a much closer way. i think it is a genocide because there has been an intent to kill civilians here. and we see not only the intent to kill them through bombing campaign that are undertaken with indistinction, in which the intent is to harm civilians, so as to extract political pressure on the people in gaza.

and we see it in the way in which hospitals have been attacked. all hospitals in gaza have been attacked. we see it in a way in which schools have been attacked, in which all institutions have been attacked. it seems to be an intent and an action to erase the foundation of palestinian society in gaza — and it's still ongoing. israeli officials and military officers do say that they are not targeting civilians. they say it's a battle against hamas, and hamas has a network of tunnels under gaza, which were constructed through a time of blockade. could you — do you think you could map those tunnels? could you work with the families of hostages who know that somewhere in those tunnels are their loved ones? my heart is with the hostages.

i also know a few people that were living in what is called the gaza envelope. but i don't think it is the role of a human rights organisation to undertake military surveillance, certainly not in a time of a genocide on palestinians. i think the israeli army has its own... probably one of the most robust and systematic and complete systems of surveillance that it put palestinians under, and they certainly don't need our help in mapping the tunnels. perhaps the hostage families... so this is not something that... perhaps the hostage families need your help, though. in a situation of armed conflict, we are not doing military research on those issues. we are looking at violations of the rights of civilians. and, indeed, i believe

that there have been war crimes committed by hamas on october 7th in the gaza envelope, and there is a genocide ongoing right now in gaza that we need to stop in all means at our disposal, at the professional means of our disposal. do you allow yourself to think about the day after, and would you ever want to get involved in the reconstruction of gaza? i think that we need to think about reconstruction in a wider context than gaza. i think the very idea of the gaza strip, in itself, a project for reconstruction that is framed within the border of gaza, is unjust and historically naive. i think that we need to think about palestine. to think about the entire area. i'm — you know, as you said, i'm born in israel and i believe injustice and equality.

and i believe that as an israeli jew born there, i should have exactly the same right as a palestinian that is born in that place. and i believe that in order to do that, we need a different political system — based on democracy and equality. i know that you've said that architects should be public figures, and you clearly have chosen a very political way to exercise your own profession and operate in your own profession. is there any part of you whichjust thinks, you know, if i was building office blocks or ordinary apartments, it would be a... it would be a simpler life? and do you look at architects who are doing that and think they�* re missing something? yeah — i mean, there's always an architect in you, and there's definitely an architect in me. there's always a sketchbook around with all sorts of ideas that i collect for a time when it would be possible. but i feel that i have been

born into a situation, and i live through a period where my skill, my... the architectural intelligence, if you like, that my team—mates, my colleagues, myself, can actually utilise is much more helpful right now in doing what we do in order to stand up for the rights of those people facing state violence around the world. do you think your fellow architects still see you as one of them, or have you gone out so far into this new field that you're something else entirely now? i don't know. you know, i'm invited to teach in architecture schools worldwide, from princeton to columbia university to unam in mexico city, and in many, many other universities worldwide. i see young architects awakening. architects wanting to use their skill and

techniques in a political way. i see architects wanting to be more active, more politically outspoken. i see a lot of thirst for that, and that is the interest that we have. when we put up a job advertisement in forensic architecture for an architect, we have hundreds of applicants. and i believe we have really like, you know, the best team that one can imagine right now. but i feel that architecture has also transformed in recent years. the kind of the era of the star architect designer is kind of waning and sort of like, this is passing. and the new... what young architects want to do are things that matter, things that protect the environment, that protect politics, that stands for human rights, etc. eyal weitzman, thank you very much. oh, thank you.

hello there. storm conall was named by the dutch weather service. we won't get the really strong winds from that, but we're already seeing some rain coming into england and wales. that rain has followed what was a generally dry and sunny picture for many places on tuesday. but this is the developing storm moving up from the southwest, bringing cloud and outbreaks of rain. the heaviest of the rain, overnight and into wednesday morning, will be in the far southeast of england. further north, there will be some rain, but no great amounts — but any more rain, given all the flooding, will not be particularly good news. and further north still, into the far north of england — scotland in particular, and northern ireland — some frost around here early on wednesday, some mist and fog patches, too.

but further south, it looks pretty cloudy. the rain should've cleared wales and the south west by the morning, and that heavy rain clearing the southeast of england by late morning. eventually, this rain does move away from lincolnshire and east anglia, where it will turn quite windy as the rain clears. and the winds will bring in a few showers along the east coast of scotland and the northeast of england. otherwise, many northern areas seeing some sunshine. a chillier day, though, than it was on tuesday, particularly if any of that fog lingers in northern ireland. this is storm conall — it's really developing as it leaves our shores, hence the strongest of the winds are likely to be in the netherlands. and following on from that, a ridge of high pressure will build across the uk — that's bringing light winds, clear skies — and that's pointing to a widespread frost by thursday morning. there may be some mist and fog patches around, as well, which will slowly lift. could be a little grey for a while in the southeast of england. many places, though, will be dry with some sunshine, but towards the far southwest of england and wales, a little rain coming in here and pushing into northern ireland later on in the day. here, the winds are strengthening, lifting

the temperatures somewhat — but elsewhere, where it's dry with some sunshine, it'll be another chilly day on thursday. things will change, though, towards the end of the week — that high pressure gets pushed away. a weather front may well bring some rain into the far north and west, but we'll find, with low pressure to the west of the uk, high pressure to the east, we see a southerly wind picking up, and that will lift the temperatures, as well. so, stronger winds by the end of the week and into the start of the weekend. the start of the weekend. a lot of cloud around, a lot of cloud around, mind you — it won't be as cold mind you — it won't be as cold at night, we're losing at night, we're losing the frosty conditions, and it should be turning the frosty conditions, and it should be turning mild by day, as well. mild by day, as well. bye for now. bye for now.

live from washington.0 this is bbc news. israel and lebanon reach a ceasefire deal

in the conflict with hezbollah that has left thousands dead and many more displaced. five people have been found alive — and four bodies have been recovered —after a tourist boat sank off egypt's red sea coast. and world leaders and markets react after president—elect trump vows import tariffs on his first day in office. us presidentjoe biden confirmed a ceasefire between israel and hezbollah — saying it shows peace is possible, in what he called the "deadliest conflict in decades." the truce is said to be implemented over a 60 day period which will take effect in about one hour's time but thatis in about one hour's time but that is for in the morning local time. we can show you live pictures. this is beirut and there you can see a relatively calm scene and we can also show you the northern border with lebanon where skies are dark and very quiet at this

hour as we approach the