Executions and Mass Graves in Tantura, 23 May 1948

Forensic Architecture

Sunday

13.09.2026

15:00-15:30

Betonhalle

Betonhalle

Betonhalle

Betonhalle

Betonhalle

Betonhalle

In May 1948, shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel, the Palestinian fishing village of Tantura was attacked and occupied by the Alexandroni Brigade, later made part of the Israeli army. Within hours of occupying the village, Israeli forces and intelligence units conducted a systematic massacre of disarmed Palestinian fighters and civilians. The village itself was subsequently destroyed, largely disappearing from the contemporary landscape.

Commissioned by the Haifa-based legal centre Adalah, this investigation by Forensic Architecture examines the events at Tantura through an extensive body of spatial and visual evidence. Archival maps, aerial photographs, satellite imagery, documentary footage and architectural surveys are brought together with memory sketches and the testimonies of former residents to digitally reconstruct the village as it existed before 1948.

The resulting model identifies two sites considered highly likely to contain mass graves, including one previously undocumented, as well as further suspected locations. In the accompanying film, this spatial investigation is interwoven with survivors’ voices and memories.

Moving between forensic evidence, testimony and the altered landscape, the film asks how traces of historical violence can be recovered when the places in which it occurred have been erased, and how land itself can become a bearer of memory.