In the early hours of Saturday, October 7, Palestinians in the West Bank woke up to the sound of explosions.
No one really knew what was going on until reports began to spread that Gaza fighters had taken control of the Beit Hanoun crossing, the only way Gaza residents can reach the rest of historic Palestine on the rare occasions the occupiers allow them.
Soon after, social media broke down the wall Israel built around the Gaza Strip to keep its 2.3 million people imprisoned forever.
And then he came images and images of the broken wall. in one the video, showing a bulldozer collapsing the wall, a Palestinian can be heard exultantly shouting: “Yes, go! Allahu Akbar [God is the Greatest]! Hit it guys! Rest in peace, wall!”
It was unbelievable. It felt surreal. We asked how it was possible that the people of Gaza were released from prison.
Few in the world would understand our feelings at that moment. Maybe political prisoners.
The vast majority of the remaining Palestinian population in historic Palestine were born in prison and have only known prison. Gaza is completely cut off from the rest of the world by Israel’s apartheid wall and is under a debilitating siege, in which its neighbor Egypt is fortunately participating.
During the occupation of the West Bank, all entry and exit points of all Palestinian towns, villages and cities are controlled by Israeli occupation forces; Palestinians, unlike Israeli settlers who steal their land, do not have freedom of movement.
Our prison also includes prison work. With the Israeli occupation stifling the Palestinian economy and the resulting high unemployment rate, Palestinians are forced to seek work from prison officials. The Israeli authorities, of course, strictly control this process, issuing and often arbitrarily revoking “work permits” to Palestinians.
As in a real prison, we are also subject to the circle care through cameras in public places, drones, telephone and telecommunication clearance, through a network of infiltrators and spies, etc.
And of course, like prisoners, we are “punished” for “misbehaving”. In Gaza, sanctions mean indiscriminate bombing of densely populated areas, which always results in mass killing of civilians.
In the West Bank, we experience nightly “search and arrest raids” where occupiers invade our homes, brutalize our loved ones in front of terrified children, and take them (sometimes the children themselves) away for arrest. unlimited without charge. Shooting Palestinian civilians in these raids is, of course, common.
In this context, those images and videos of the Gaza prison wall are liberating. Their symbolic power cannot be overstated.
We felt the same excitement when we heard about it in 2021 six Palestinian political prisoners He was released from an Israeli prison. They dug a tunnel out of the prison using a spoon, bits of metal and a lot of patience.
That prison break became a symbol of Palestinian determination. Palestinians cheered on the prisoners as they evaded prison officials for days. We celebrated the simple acts of tasting freedom: eating a shield for the first time in 20 years, hugging a cow, walking in the hills of Nazareth. We breathed freedom with them, as if we were free too.
The liberating feeling of getting out of prison has also come from our incarcerated brave hunger strikers. In 2011, Khader Adnan, who had been detained without charge by the Israelis for a decade, went on hunger strike against another unjust detention. He was accompanied by hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Despite threats and abuse, he held out until enough pressure built up that Israel forced his release. We celebrated Adnan’s freedom as if it were our own.
These brief moments of rupture from our prison reality are both frightening and exhilarating. Of course, they are always short-lived: brief instances of Palestinian victory before the unbearable weight of Israeli military domination crushes us.
The initial euphoria of seeing the apartheid wall come down in Gaza was quickly overtaken by the realization of what was to come.
We knew that the war broke out the moment the Palestinians in Gaza left the Israeli prison. In conversations with peers and friends, in group chats, in phone calls, the same dark forecast prevailed: “We will all be killed.”
We know, from direct experience, what Israel is revenge policy means We also know that no matter what kind of atrocities his army commits, the West would “be there” and point out the “crimes of Palestine”.
Israel fought five wars in Gaza, each time murdering Palestinian civilians whenever Western leaders justified the killing with the familiar mantra “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
And, of course, that’s exactly what’s happening now. Israel is bombing Gaza. It has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, with no water, electricity, food or medicine entering the Strip. Telecommunication infrastructure has been bombed, cutting off the Palestinians in Gaza from the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the West Bank is completely blocked; they closed checkpoints, effectively paralyzing the entire territory. Israeli soldiers are shooting Palestinians and encouraging settlers to do the same.
And yet the West stands “next door” to its ally, Israel, and the people who brutally occupy and oppress its “right to self-defense.” Western nations are stealing Israel’s propaganda, that it is fighting “Islamic terrorism”, that “Hamas is ISIS”, that the Palestinians are “subhuman”, that they are “beheading children”. All pretense of morality, logic and truth has been discarded to justify the mass killing of Palestinians.
In the last seven days, the Israeli army has killed more than 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza, including 600 children. Local soldiers have killed at least 53 Palestinians in the West Bank. Another 250 have died since the start of the year, making it the deadliest year since the United Nations began documenting deaths in 2004-2005.
We expected all of that. All of this is still painful and scary. All of this will go down in Palestinian history as another episode of Palestinian resistance and Israeli mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing.
However, unlike other moments in Palestinian history, something is different this time. The Palestinians not only got out of prison in Gaza – albeit for a short time – but for the first time they struck a blow that will have a big impact.
Palestinians hit Israel where they have hit Palestinians for over 75 years: life and land. Israel’s pride and sense of security that it can oppress, kill and steal land with impunity has been shattered.
We have been held hostage by Israel for decades. For generations we have been imprisoned in our lands. But in October, the bad boy finally got punched and the bully has shaken off.
As our oppressors kill indiscriminately in blind rage, the uneasy feeling that the prison that holds us between them is beginning to crumble is creeping in.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
