What is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories is no longer merely a continuation of the war or a security measure aimed at containing resistance. Rather, it reveals a comprehensive process of reshaping Palestinian geography and controlling the distribution of the population, making the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state increasingly difficult. From the besieged and devastated Gaza Strip to the West Bank, where settlements and settlement outposts continue to expand, a policy of imposing facts on the ground is advancing at the expense of Palestinian national rights, amid the international community’s inability to stop it.
In the Gaza Strip, the announcement of a ceasefire has neither ended the suffering of the population nor guaranteed their security and right to life. Continued military operations, destruction of homes and infrastructure, restrictions on humanitarian aid, and the establishment of buffer zones alongside the expansion of military control are all forcing residents to live in an increasingly shrinking area, amid extremely harsh humanitarian conditions.
In the West Bank, the process of changing the geographical reality is taking a different form. It involves expanding settlements, establishing settlement outposts, seizing land, and increasing the number of checkpoints and roads that separate Palestinian communities from one another. The consequences of these policies go beyond land confiscation. They also include fragmenting cities and towns, weakening geographical and economic connections between them, and undermining the Palestinians’ ability to administer their affairs within a unified political entity.
Thus, the situation appears different in its methods but similar in its consequences. The Gaza Strip faces destruction, siege and a shrinking space in which life can be sustained, while the West Bank faces settlement expansion and geographical fragmentation. In both cases, Palestinians are paying the price for a policy that makes the land intended to form the basis of their future state increasingly disconnected and more subject to Israeli control.
The danger of what is happening lies not in individual developments on the ground but in their cumulative effect and their transformation into realities that will be difficult to reverse in the future. A state cannot be established merely through a political declaration or diplomatic recognition. It requires a contiguous territory, a population able to move and work, resources sufficient to sustain life, and effective sovereignty over its borders and resources.
But how can anyone speak of a viable Palestinian state when its territory is being fragmented, settlements are expanding at its expense, population centres are being besieged, and control over Palestinian movement and resources remains in the hands of the occupying authorities?
Turning the West Bank into isolated enclaves while keeping the Gaza Strip trapped in a cycle of siege, destruction and instability drains the two-state solution of its practical meaning, even if international statements and declarations continue to invoke it. The problem is no longer the absence of diplomatic formulas, but the widening gap between what the international community declares and what the realities imposed by Israel on the ground actually permit.
Israel often attempts to present its policies on the ground as responses to security concerns. However, continued settlement expansion, land confiscation and the consolidation of control over increasingly large parts of the West Bank cannot all be explained solely through the logic of security. They are also connected to a struggle over land, sovereignty and the future of the Palestinian people.
More troublingly, some of these policies enjoy political backing from forces within the Israeli government and the Knesset that advocate settlement expansion and the annexation of territory, either directly or gradually. Changing the geographical reality is therefore no longer merely a side effect of the war. It has become a factor shaping its political outcome, as new realities are imposed before any potential settlement can be reached.
This process cannot be separated from the attacks Palestinians face in the West Bank, including settler violence, property destruction and assaults on farmers. When accessing, cultivating or harvesting land becomes dangerous, the issue goes beyond individual acts of aggression. It raises fundamental questions about the ability of Palestinians to remain on their land and the responsibility of the occupying authorities to protect them from violence and hold perpetrators accountable.
[by Ali Ou Amou in Elaph]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque