How systemic blockade, colonial dispossession, and geopolitical abandonment reshaped Gaza’s economy, ecology, and collective memory under prolonged occupation
Original framing: “How has Israel’s genocide changed Gaza?” — Al Jazeera
Gaza’s port was not just a modern economic hub but the successor to the ancient Phoenician and Ottoman trading networks that once connected the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The 1948 Nakba’s depopulation of coastal villages like Al-Shafi and Al-Sayyida—where Palestinian fishermen once dominated the trade in sponges and coral—set the stage for the current crisis. The 1956 Suez Crisis and subsequent Israeli military rule further dismantled Gaza’s maritime economy, as the 1967 occupation formalized the blockade through the 'closed borders' policy. Even the 1994 Oslo Accords, touted as a step toward Palestinian autonomy, included Article 18, which explicitly allowed Israel to maintain control over Gaza’s territorial waters—a provision that has been weaponized ever since. Without confronting this history, any reconstruction will repeat the cycle of dependency and fragmentation.
Gaza’s port is not just a symbol of destruction but a microcosm of how colonialism operates through layered violence: the immediate brutality of military campaigns, the slow erosion of economic sovereignty through blockades, and the erasure of indigenous knowledge systems that once sustained coastal communities.
The blockade’s targeting of Gaza’s maritime economy was not an accident but a deliberate strategy to fragment Palestinian territorial identity, rendering the population dependent on foreign aid while Israel maintained control over the region’s resources. Historical parallels—from the Dutch Water Boards’ exclusion of indigenous knowledge to the South African apartheid regime’s maritime policies—reveal that Gaza’s crisis is not unique but part of a global pattern of resource extraction disguised as 'security.' The solution lies in reversing these mechanisms: lifting the blockade, restoring Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza’s territorial waters, and reviving the *sufa* fishermen’s traditions through reparative justice. Without addressing these systemic causes, any reconstruction will merely reproduce the conditions that led to collapse, leaving Gaza’s people trapped in a cycle of dependency and despair.