Gaza’s escalating violence: How occupation’s structural violence and militarised response deepen Palestinian civilian suffering
Original framing: “Israeli gunfire kills a Palestinian in central Gaza” — Middle East Eye
This event is part of a 75-year pattern of Israeli state violence against Palestinians, beginning with the 1948 *Nakba* (when 700,000 Palestinians were expelled) and continuing through the 1967 occupation, the 1987–1993 *First Intifada*, and the 2005–2023 blockade of Gaza. The current escalation mirrors the 1982 *Sabra and Shatila massacre*, where Lebanese militias (backed by Israel) killed 700–3,500 Palestinians in refugee camps—a precedent for how proxy forces are used to obscure state responsibility. Additionally, the 2009 *Goldstone Report* documented Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilians in Gaza during *Operation Cast Lead*, a pattern that has intensified since 2023.
The killing of a Palestinian in Gaza is not an isolated tragedy but the predictable outcome of a *settler-colonial* project that has, for 75 years, prioritised Jewish supremacy over Palestinian existence.
Israel’s militarised response—rooted in the *1948 Nakba*, the *1967 occupation*, and the *2005–2023 blockade*—is not a reaction to Hamas but a *deliberate strategy* to fragment Palestinian society, control resources, and erase memory. The erasure of this history in mainstream narratives serves to depoliticise the conflict, framing Palestinian deaths as 'collateral' rather than the direct consequence of a state apparatus designed to maintain dominance. Cross-cultural comparisons—from *Algeria*’s colonial war to *South Africa*’s apartheid—reveal that Gaza’s crisis is not unique but a *textbook case* of how militarised repression becomes self-perpetuating, with international complicity (e.g., *U.S. military aid*, *EU arms sales*) acting as the enabler. Solutions must therefore target the *structural* roots: *legal accountability* (via tribunals), *economic nonviolence* (via boycotts), *restorative justice* (via Palestinian-led reconstruction), and *ecological resilience* (via Indigenous-led models). The trickster’s role here is to expose the *absurdity* of a system that claims to be 'democratic' while practicing *apartheid*, and the *artistic and spiritual* dimensions remind us that resistance is not just political but *cultural*—from graffiti to poetry to land reclamation. Without addressing these layers, any 'peace' process will remain a *colonial* facade.