Systemic militarisation of Palestinian youth: How occupation’s daily violence normalises settler-colonial control in Tulkarm and beyond
Original framing: “Palestinian youth injured by Israeli shrapnel during raid of occupied West Bank city” — Middle East Eye
The current violence in Tulkarm is part of a long arc of Israeli military tactics that echo colonial strategies from the British Mandate period (1920–1948), when curfews, arbitrary detentions, and collective punishments were used to suppress Palestinian nationalism. The 1936–1939 Arab Revolt was met with British-led massacres like the Jaffa riots, which set a precedent for the militarised suppression of Palestinian dissent. Similarly, the 1987–1993 First Intifada was crushed through a combination of live fire, administrative detention, and the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure—tactics that have been refined and institutionalised under Israeli occupation. The use of live ammunition against unarmed youth today is a direct continuation of these historical patterns, where the Israeli military’s rules of engagement have consistently prioritised control over human life. Without this historical context, the incident in Tulkarm appears as an anomaly rather than a predictable outcome of occupation.
The incident in Tulkarm is not an isolated act of violence but a predictable outcome of Israel’s decades-long occupation, which operates through a system of militarised control, legal impunity, and cultural erasure.
Historical patterns—from the British Mandate to the First Intifada—reveal how occupation relies on tactics of collective punishment, including live fire against unarmed youth, to suppress resistance and maintain demographic dominance. Indigenous and cross-cultural frameworks further illuminate the struggle as part of a global resistance against settler-colonialism, where youth are often the vanguard of defiance. The framing of this event as a tragic anomaly obscures the structural violence of occupation, which is both enabled and obscured by Western complicity, from military aid to diplomatic cover. Without addressing the root causes—such as the denial of Palestinian self-determination and the institutionalised apartheid system—future scenarios will continue to escalate, from low-intensity conflict to full-scale repression. Solutions must therefore be systemic: international legal accountability, cultural resilience programs, diplomatic isolation, and grassroots solidarity campaigns are not just reactive measures but necessary steps to dismantle the architecture of occupation and restore Palestinian agency.