“Dark is Gaza’s night except for the glow of missiles, silent except for the sound of bombing, frightening except for the comfort of prayers, black except for the light of the martyrs. Good night, #Gaza,” tweeted the poet Hiba Abu Nada, in Arabic, on October 8th, 12 days before Israel killed her in an airstrike.
In Arabic, the term for darkness is “الظلام” (“al-zulam”), sharing the same root as the Arabic word for injustice, “ظلم” (“zulm”). By intertwining with darkness, the Arabic word “الظلام” (“al-zulam”) traps injustice within a daunting realm of obscurity, capturing the relentless, oppressive, and perpetual nature of injustice that has plagued Palestinians since October 7 and throughout the preceding 75 years.
In retaliation to Hamas’s brutal attacks on Israel on October 7th which killed around 1200 people and took more than 220 hostages, Israel has been relentlessly bombarding Gaza, killing more than 20,000 Palestinians in less than 3 months, destroying more than 70% of Gaza’s infrastructure, and displacing more than 1.8 million Palestinians.
Amid the unfolding catastrophe, Zak Hania, a Palestinian researcher and editor at the Center for Political and Development Studies, cries in agony to an Al Jazeera reporter: “What did we do to the world? What did we do? We are human beings, we are civilians.” Similarly, Sara Besaiso, a 16-years-old Palestinian, echoes this poignant sentiment in her heartfelt letter from Gaza: “Was it my only fault that I have been born in this city, or in this country? […] Could you tell us why this is happening?” she implores.
Embedded within Zak and Sara’s questions is the inherent expectation that the right to life is inviolable by virtue of their humanity and that any inflicted punishment should be proportionate and targeted specifically at those found guilty. However, the weeks following October 7th and the 75 years prior to that, demonstrated that in the eyes of Israel and much of the world, Palestinians are presumed guilty and subjected to punishment until found innocent.
As a Lebanese, I have closely witnessed Israel’s ongoing aggressions against Palestinians for as long as I can remember. Each of these unchecked aggressions demonstrated that proving their innocence is an elusive quest for Palestinians, as it depends on securing their justice; yet their justice remains elusive until they are presumed innocent. Palestinians thus find themselves trapped in a vicious and impossible cycle of collective punishment.
Many human rights organizations have condemned Israeli aggressions on Palestinians in the aftermath of October 7th and in the decades preceding this as collective punishment, often implying that the injustice mainly lies in the “collective” nature of the punitive measures. I can’t help but observe that the unjust aspect also extends to the very premise of punishment, which traps Palestinians in the role of guilty perpetrators, obscuring the broader context of their ongoing oppression, suppression, and denials and failing to recognize their claims to justice.
Responding to the call from Palestinian writer Mosab Abu Toha, who recently escaped Gaza, urging others to document their observations on unfolding events in Gaza and Palestine, I take up the duty to write my own observations. In this text, I delve into how both “collective” and “punishment” conspire to perpetuate violations against Palestinians, confining them in the harsh reality of futile justice. I interweave observations from Palestinians, many based in Gaza, in my writing, not only as a tribute to their humanity and depth but also because their words are the most precise, meaningful, and powerful.
Obscured in the Collective
The collective treatment of Palestinians, obscuring the wholeness of their humanity and individuality, lies at the heart of numerous injustices perpetrated against them.
In a 2022 essay, Asmaa Abu Mezied[1], an economic development and social inclusion specialist from Gaza captures how Palestinians have been forced into a monolithic and reductive collective identity associated with violence and terrorism: “We record to resist the labeling of our people as unworthy, if not inhuman, by the so-called “objective” western media, which can barely say our names or tell our stories. We are always portrayed as terrorists, violent people – or as numbers, abstract and formless. We are repeatedly asked to prove our humanity. […] We record not to humanize ourselves for others, but so that future generations will remember who we were and what we did… to warn them against all attempts at erasing our existence.”
For decades, Israelis have employed a collective characterization of Palestinians through a dual strategy: erasing their identity as a political people while labeling them collectively as a violent terrorist group that poses a security threat to Israel. This tactic has facilitated the imposition of a state of exception on Palestinians, perpetuating the Israeli occupation, subjecting Palestinians to violent treatment, and denying them their fundamental rights, including that of self-determination.
In her book, “Justice For Some: Law and the Question of Palestine”, Noura Erakat, the Palestinian American human rights lawyer, shows that by reducing Palestinians to a violent collective threat to Israel’s security and erasing Palestinians’ peoplehood, Israel utilized its sovereignty to declare exceptional political situations, requiring the suspension of normal legal rules. For example, after the 1948 war, Israel placed outside the civil law the Palestinians who had not fled or been expulsed from the new state by racializing them as a collective threat. This distinctive treatment in law persists to this day. Moreover, after the 1967 war, Israel relied on the erasure of Palestinians’ peoplehood to claim that the lack of “rightful sovereign” in the Palestinian territories made them a legal exception. This declaration of exception enabled Israel to assert control over these territories, all the while asserting that it is not obligated to uphold all provisions of occupation law. It selectively applied humanitarian provisions while disregarding political guarantees, effectively shirking its responsibility to protect the sovereign rights of Palestinians. Erakat eloquently articulates the predicament Palestinians find themselves in, stating, “Finding themselves under the specialized legal regime, the Palestinians would be suspended in limbo as non-citizens of Israel and as non-sovereigns under occupation, completely subject to Israel’s discretionary whims.”
Israel’s attacks on Gaza since October 7th underscore that even the right to life for Palestinians is subject to Israel’s discretion. “Innocents in Gaza? Don’t be naïve,” was the headline of an article published in the Times of Israel on December 4th, 2023. By collectively categorizing Palestinians as either Hamas, Hamas sympathizers, or human shields, Israel has been allowed, with minimal condemnation and accountability from the world, to indiscriminately kill Palestinians at an unprecedented rate, deny those it has not yet killed access to food, water, and dignity, destroy their homes along with the basic infrastructure of their lives, and erase their culture and history through destroying archives and universities.
In 2022, Basman Aldirawi[2], a physiotherapist from Gaza, wrote: “At the border crossing; Between the earth and the sky; I still stand for hours; My legs are shaking; The sweat all over my body; A voice inside my head whispering; You’re a full human even if You feel like half.” Today, we see Palestinians’ resistance against being reduced to mere fractions of a collective, consistently asserting the fullness of their humanity, the richness of their narratives, and the vastness of their dreams. “I am Khalil, I am 27 years old, I studied English literature and I learnt many things, and I have a lot of dreams and ambitions. I know how to love and I know how to have fun, and I know how to work and achieve. If I am martyred, I don’t want to be a number, say my name, hear my story, and pray for me. I am not a number. I am a whole planet,” wrote on X Khalil in Gaza.
Punishment as a tool to subjugate.
When the humanity and individuality of Palestinians are erased, collective punishment becomes inevitable, with no distinction made between the innocent and the guilty. However, the injustice goes beyond this failure to differentiate. It is rooted in the origin of the punishment, decontextualizing the plight of Palestinians and basing itself on the assumption that Palestinians are inherently guilty and deserving of punishment. In a 1982 essay, Edward Said pointed out that for Israel, Palestinians were either “ignored or to be punished,” exposing how Palestinians are found guilty and punished for merely refusing to accept their reduction to an entity that can be ignored. As such, punishment does not only result from the subjugation and erasure of the Palestinian people but also becomes a tool to accelerate it.
In an essay published in 2022, Refaat Alareer[3], a Gaza-based educator, poet and professor of English literature, tragically killed by an Israeli airstrike on December 7th, recounted childhood encounters with Israeli soldiers, revealing how any sign of restlessness from Palestinians implies that they are guilty: “They slapped me, my brothers, and cousins dozens of times because when they checked, our hearts were racing, a sign we were running and possibly throwing stones. We were between eight and eleven years old then. Our hearts always raced.”
He further recounts another instance, underscoring the unyielding punishment inflicted on Palestinians: “My friend Lewa Bakroum, then thirteen, who was chased by an Israeli settler who shot him dead from point blank range in front of his classmates. The Israeli settler did not want to punish Lewa for throwing stones, for Lewa did not throw stones. The settler wanted to teach those who threw stones a lesson, by killing a kid.”
Always presumed guilty, they endure relentless punishment by Israel in their daily lives. In a scene from the 1973 documentary “Scenes from the Occupation of Gaza” by the filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali, one of the founders of the Palestine Film Unit, an older woman screams in agony as an Israeli tank demolishes her house in front of her eyes. As the scene concludes, the screen fades to black with the word “Repeat” written in Arabic. This scene, depicting how Israel demolishes homes to punish the families of alleged attackers, is, in fact, being repeated until today, in an endless loop of punitive actions. According to the Palestinian Human Rights organization AlHaq, numerous punitive actions, such as arbitrary and administrative detention, military trials, torture, excessive use of force, movement restrictions, the constriction of space for human rights defenders, house demolitions, residency revocations, withholding Palestinian bodies, and imposing curfews and closures, are employed by Israel to quell the “will of the Palestinian people to resist its colonial rule.”
Furthermore, many of these punitive actions are executed without clear evidence of a violation. For instance, Palestinians routinely experience administrative detention, without trial or charge, with allegations that a person intends to commit a future offense. This form of detention lacks a time limit, and the underlying evidence is not disclosed. Additionally, certain punishments are evidently aimed at undermining Palestinians’ cultural practices and their connection to the land. A case in point is the criminalization of the traditional and long standing practice of picking za’atar, ‘akkoub, and miramiyyeh (sage) in Palestine. In 1977, the Israeli Nature Protection Agency designated it a protected species, rendering the practice a criminal offense punishable by fines and up to three years of imprisonment.
Then there is the ultimate punishment, Gaza. “This is Gaza, a bitter existence, where each day brings us closer to the brink. We face the specter of death daily, under the weight of an unjust oppressor, an inhumane and merciless state that clutches our necks—stealing innocence and joy from our children, and birdsongs from our windows,” wrote Eman Ashraf Alhaj Ali[4], a writer and journalist from Gaza. Israel had, in fact, been choking the life out of Gaza since 2006 by imposing a siege on the enclave. The punitive siege had been so stifling that, amid Israel’s onslaught on Gaza following October 7th, the residents found themselves without viable options to flee. This has led the UN aid chief Martin Griffiths to characterize the conflict as one of the “worst ever.”
Moreover, Israel’s attacks on the Gaza strip since October 7th demonstrate more than just collective punishment for Hamas’ attacks. Through the systematic destruction of mosques, churches, heritage sites, universities, libraries and the targeted killing of poets, writers, and academics, Israel seeks to obliterate the shared memories, culture, and future of the Palestinian people. An article published in The Guardian on December 18th, 2023 stated that “This is what it would look like, to erase a people.”
The injustice of the punishment also resides in the paradoxical way it dominates the reality of Palestinians. While they endure unending punishment by Israel, they are powerless to punish the perpetrators for crimes against them. This imbalance leaves Palestinians continuously trapped as the recipients of punishment while denied the power to punish actors for the wrongs they have endured. Summarizing the unfair Palestinian reality, Haya el Refai[5], a professional translator and a creative writer from Gaza, wrote on November 15th, 2023: “Imagine if you could be killed where you live, but nobody can hold the killer accountable”.
In the current world order, the main avenues to ensuring fair accountability can mainly occur at the nation-state or the international level. Denied a nation-statehood, Palestinians lack the protection of a sovereign state and instead exist under Israeli occupation. Israel has been trying Palestinians in military courts that fail to be impartial and neutral arbitrates. The Israeli human rights organization Btselem, described the courts as “one of the most injurious apparatuses of the occupation. In these courts, the judges and prosecutors are always Israeli soldiers in uniform. The Palestinians are always either suspects or defendants and are almost always convicted for violating orders issued by the occupation regime.” Moreover, according to Yesh Din, another Israeli human rights organization, Palestinians harmed by Israeli soldiers have a less than one percent likelihood of securing justice if they file a complaint in Israel.
At the international level, despite a growing number of human rights organizations acknowledging the violations of Palestinians’ rights and despite international laws designed to uphold fundamental human rights and dignity, these mechanisms have fallen short in guaranteeing the rights of Palestinians. International law is as effective as its power to punish. Nevertheless, the absence of a reliable enforcement model and the evident imbalance of power among states make the punishment of influential nations like Israel, backed by the United States, nearly unattainable. In fact, the U.S. has wielded its veto power to thwart at least 40 UN resolutions aimed at protecting Palestinians from Israel’s crimes. The International Criminal Court (ICC), of which Palestine became a member in 2015, stands as the sole international institution with the potential to impartially investigate and prosecute crimes against Palestinians. However, attaining justice at the court remains elusive. While the ICC opened an official investigation into the situation in Palestine in 2021 and despite the countless reports documenting human rights violations in Palestine since 2015, the ICC has not issued any indictments, and no Israeli has faced trial. Rights groups and activists have criticized ICC’s response to the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza as being slow and “tepid”.
Jehan Bseiso[6] a Palestinian poet, researcher, and aid worker describes the failure of international law, writing in 2022: “I can confirm this: international law is clearly for internationals only. By now, a seven-year-old in Gaza has survived three wars already, and you’re still talking about talks and sending John Kerry to the Middle East, and thanking Egypt for facilitating nothing. There’s more blood than water today in Gaza.“
While justice is not exclusively a question of law and punishment, Palestinians’ exclusion from applicable laws and protection, and the resulting punishment they endure, has propelled them further into an abyss of injustice. “My neighborhood was bombed with white phosphorus, and it is known to be illegal, but apparently nothing is too illegal for it to be used on us.” wrote Sara Besaiso[7] from Gaza on October 23rd . 2023.
Palestinians’ rights to resist negation.
In his book the Question of Palestine, Edward Said stated that “the principal and quite justified Palestinian fear is of the negation that can quite easily become our fate.” Over the past decades, negation has, indeed, dominated the reality of Palestinians. They were negated into a collective dehumanized or even nonexistent group and then punished for resisting the negation. This reality renders injustice (“al zulm”الظلم”) particularly oppressive and confining for Palestinians, as they are constantly punished in an attempt to force them to relinquish their claims to their national existence and their human rights.
In the novel “Mornings in Jenin”, Susan AbulHawa tells the multi-generational story of a Palestinian family forcibly removed from the olive-farming village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948 and subsequently living through a half-century of violent history. AbulHawa describes how hardships, loss, fear, and pain resulting from Israeli violence and crimes have trapped the once colorful Dalia and then, decades later, her daughter Amal in a gray stillness and an internal coldness. Dalia’s advice to Amal, “Whatever you feel, keep it inside,” encapsulates how repression becomes the only viable measure in the face of Israeli aggression. In essence, the experiences of Dalia and Amal symbolize the broader Palestinian narrative, shaped by Israel’s attempts to reduce the Palestinian people into a subdued, colorless existence, eroding any inclination to resist their gradual erasure.
Despite Israel’s attempts to erase the Palestinian people, Palestinians have consistently demonstrated resilience, refusing to be effaced and remaining steadfast in their pursuit of affirmation, self-determination, and justice.
“Palestinians have the right to be part of the world. Despite the challenges that continue to confront us – we act – in the words of Palestinian novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah – “as if we live above occupation and not under it,” wrote Yousef Aljamal[8], who holds a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies and is the author and translator of a number of books.
Hours before she was killed, Hiba Abu Nada portrayed in her final post the enduring struggle of Palestinians against oppression: “Each of us in Gaza is either witness to or martyr for liberation. Each is waiting to see which of the two they’ll become up there with God. We have already started building a new city in Heaven. Doctors without patients. No one bleeds. Teachers in uncrowded classrooms. No yelling at students. New families without pain or sorrow. Journalists writing up and taking photos of eternal love. They’re all from Gaza. In Heaven, the new Gaza is free of siege. It is taking shape now.”
[1] Published in Light in Gaza, in the essay entitled “On Why We Still Hold Onto Our Phones and Keep Recording.”
[2] Published in Light in Gaza, from his poem entitled “Don’t Step on My Feet Again.”
[3] Published in Light in Gaza, in the essay entitled “Gaza Asks: When Shall This Pass?”
[4] Published on We are not numbers in an essay entitled “Gaza’s unyielding reality: Sparrows, sirens, and survival.”
[5] Published on We are not numbers in an essay entitled “History will not repeat itself.”
[6] From her poem “Gaza, from the diaspora” published in July 2014.
[7] Published in Letters From Gaza on Protean Magazine.
[8] Published in Light in Gaza, in the essay entitled “Travel Restrictions as a Manifestation of Nakba: Gaza, the Path Backward Is the Path Forward.”
One response to “Justice Denied: The Perpetual Punishment of Palestinians”
A very expressive & heartbreaking stories & of the Arabs don’t wake up we will have the same dark future