Palestine 107: Life Under Occupation
Welcome to Palestine 107! This is the seventh post in our series meant to provide introductory information on Palestine's history, culture, and politics. If you’ve wanted to learn more about the situation in Palestine but have felt confused or overwhelmed by the amount of information out there, this series is for you!
In this post, we will discuss the ways that the Israeli government impacts Palestinians’ day-to-day, as well as how the effects of the occupation seep into all aspects of life.
Checkpoints are one of the biggest Israeli impediments on the daily activities of Palestinians. Those living in the West Bank must obtain permits to enter Israel, which is done by crossing through one of the hundreds of checkpoints situated on the border and inside Palestinian territory. Palestinian laborers who work in Israel pass through these checkpoints every day, arriving hours before they need to be at work, as going through them is an often brutal process. It can take hours to get through, and they are so crowded that people are frequently injured, or even killed, while waiting. Palestinians may have their permits arbitrarily rejected, and checkpoints are notoriously a site of increased violence at the hands of the IOF. Factors such as a person’s citizenship status, the license plates on their car, or even their physical appearance can all affect experiences at checkpoints, through which permission to pass is subjective to the decisions of the IOF soldiers that monitor them. While Palestinians must waste hours of their lives in absurd lines, Israeli citizens are free to come and go between the West Bank and Israel, though they are prohibited from entering Gaza. For Palestinians living in Gaza, movement is so restricted that it is nearly impossible for them to leave, whether to go abroad or even to other parts of occupied Palestine. Checkpoints are used to exert control over Palestinians and are an integral part of Israel’s apartheid system.
Travel restrictions are not limited to checkpoints, but also impacts those leaving and entering Palestine. While Palestine has historically had its own airports, Israel’s control over “external security” means Palestinians are currently prohibited from having airports, and everyone must fly into an Israeli airport (primarily in Tel Aviv). Policies supposedly in place to root out terrorists are used instead to racially profile and discriminate against Palestinians flying into Israel. They are frequently detained at the airport, often for hours, where they are interrogated and strip searched, in addition to having their belongings seized. Palestinians, particularly those without Israeli citizenship, are targeted by these protocols and are much more likely to be held and questioned than Israelis or citizens of other countries. And, much like at checkpoints, they may be arbitrarily denied entrance.
In Area C, which is the part of the West Bank completely under Israeli control, Palestinians must submit requests to build any kind of structure. Most of these building permits are never approved, making it impossible for Palestinians to build their own homes on their own land. As Palestinian populations expand, they must increase construction to create homes to live in, but these buildings are destroyed by the IOF, rendering their residents homeless. Additionally, as Israel grows, the IOF continues to confiscate and destroy Palestinian homes to make room for Israeli development, thus creating a modern continuation of the displacement of the 1948 Nakba.
Another integral part of Israeli apartheid is making Palestinian food sovereignty untenable. For some farmers whose land was seized during the Nakba or Naksa, they must cross checkpoints daily to reach it. The crops that farmers can grow and sell are limited, as is Palestinian access to water. Water infrastructure is demolished by the IOF, and most water that does reach Palestinian territory (especially Gaza), is contaminated along with the farmland that they are able to utilize. Certain livestock are restricted, if not banned outright, and may be subject to seizure and slaughter. Despite the fact that fish have sustained Palestinians for thousands of years, Gazans are limited in their fishing zones and fishermen are commonly targeted by Israelis. Foraging of za’atar, maramiya, and akoub (all native wild crops) has historically been prohibited, with Palestinians being forced to buy their culturally significant foods from exploitative Israeli sources. Perhaps one of the most egregious attacks on food sovereignty is the Israeli destruction of hundreds of thousands of olive trees, which are harvested for oil production but are also important symbols of Palestinian resilience, resistance, and connection to the land. All of these measures seek to prevent Palestinians from producing their own food, instead making them reliant on Israeli food production.
Limits on movement between the territories has a severe impact on Palestinian access to healthcare. Most specialized medical centers are located in Israel, which Palestinians must obtain permits to travel to, even during emergencies. In determining priority for receiving healthcare services, Israel uses a ranked system that prioritizes Israeli Jews, then Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and finally those from Palestinian territories. For Gazans, restrictions on travel make it extremely difficult to access these healthcare facilities, which exceed the quality of care available at Palestinian hospitals. Israeli domination means that Palestinian hospitals are deprived of the funding and resources that they need to function appropriately. Additionally, the targeting of hospitals and healthcare workers, as we have seen during the ongoing genocide, not only hurts Palestinians but threatens their ability to provide medical care to themselves. Foreign aid is also restricted from entering Palestinian territories, or sometimes destroyed by the IOF. Other issues like pollution and food access restrictions also cause an increased rate of illness and malnutrition, which pose a serious healthcare risk, especially in Gaza where children make up nearly half of the population. Palestinians also suffer from mental health issues at a disproportionate rate, which can be attributed to the stress and trauma of living a daily life dominated by dispossession, bombing, and extreme military violence. Trauma doctor Gabor Maté says of Palestine: “There is no PTSD here, because the trauma is never post.”
Palestinians live under constant threat of violence, whether it be from the IOF itself or Israeli settlers. Violence from the IOF is commonplace at checkpoints, but it is also prevalent even in the Palestinian territories, where soldiers have been known to shoot, beat, and arrest people at random, including civilians and young children. At peaceful protests, such as the 2018 Great March of Return, the Israeli military responded with tear gas, stun grenades, and firing of both rubber bullets and live ammunition to disperse crowds. Palestinians live every day in fear of aimless violence, for which soldiers are almost never investigated, let alone punished. They are more or less free to abuse and kill as they desire. This violence is also not contained to the military, but is also prevalent amongst settlers, who kidnap and shoot Palestinians as well as light their homes and cars on fire. These settlers are not only permitted to attack Palestinians, but are actually encouraged by the Israeli government and supplied with weapons. Both settlers and soldiers alike have a long history of theft, torture, and sexual abuse of Palestinians, all while taking their land and living in their homes.
The Israeli government currently holds almost 10,000 Palestinians in prisons, including hundreds of children. Many of these prisoners are held under “administrative detention”, meaning that they are not charged or given a trial, and are not allowed to see the “secret evidence” that is being used to hold them. Prisoners do not have adequate access to legal services, medical care, or other essential resources, and reports from released prisoners detail rampant abuse. Prison guards beat, starve, and sexually abuse prisoners, sometimes to the point of killing them. Palestinians can be convicted as adults at as young as 12, and they are tried in military courts, not civilian. One in five Palestinians has been arrested and charged, and video evidence of arrests shows soldiers publicly blindfolding and stripping arrestees. Arrests, particularly of men, have increased dramatically over the last year, with Palestinians being held on baseless accusations of participation in terrorism. It is important to note that Israel has a long history of trading political prisoners with Hamas for Israeli hostages, at times providing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners per Israeli (typically soldiers). The trading of hostages is an important tactic used by resistance groups to free illegally held detainees that would otherwise not be released. The recent refusal of the Israeli government to trade prisoners for hostages marks a significant deviation in political tactics. April 17 marks Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, when we commemorate the thousands of Palestinians imprisoned unjustly, and the hundreds who will never be released.
Working towards Palestinian liberation goes beyond simply ending the current genocide, but requires an understanding of the ways in which Israel has oppressed Palestinians for 76 years. The events of October 7th, and the following 13 months, have not occurred in a vacuum, but rather in the context of lives directed by violence, restrictions, and apartheid. The Nakba never truly ended, and the impacts of it continue to bleed into modern Palestinian daily life.
