by Shourideh C. Molavi
University of California Press
2/20/2024, paperback
SKU: 9780745344577
The perimeter around the occupied Gaza Strip is formed by a sophisticated system of fences, forts, and surveillance technologies. With each Israeli incursion, a military no-go area, or a 'buffer zone', is established along Gaza's 'borders', extending deep into Palestinian residential areas and farmlands-- further compounding the Gaza Strip's isolation from the rest of Palestine.
Since 2014, the bulldozing of Palestinian lands by the Israeli occupation forces has been complemented by unannounced aerial spraying of military herbicides, extending the reach of Israeli violence into the realm of chemical warfare. Today, the spraying has destroyed entire swaths of arable land in Gaza, forcibly changing a once-lush Palestinian landscape, and providing the Israeli army with better visibility to fire at Palestinian targets with lethal force from a distance.
This book is a vivid document of this latest stage of Israeli warfare, including original maps, images, and visualizations which deepen our understanding of its environmental and human impact. It collects new documents, original archival materials, stills of drone footage, first-hand testimonies of farmers, organizers and protesters, and documents affected vegetation in Gaza as 'silent witnesses' to Israeli settler-colonial violence.
With a foreword by Eyal Weizman.
Reviews:
"A timely and very essential addition for the understanding of the multi-layered story of Gaza, and that of Palestine. Beyond the familiar warfare in Gaza, the book presents a unique tale of Israeli violence to reengineer the Palestinian environment. The Israeli disruption of the harmonized native environment does not go without Palestinian resistance, and the book reminds the readers of the new vocabularies and imaginaries of liberation and justice." -- Ahmad Amara, lawyer and researcher of law, Al-Quds University
"Few people who do not live there know Gaza as well as Shourideh Molavi does ... Almost entirely written before the catastrophic events of late 2023, this book anticipates them, exposing the brutal history of crimes against trees, plants and the people who live with them along the 300-mile border zone between Gaza and Israel, as nothing less than 75 years of colonization." -- Laura Kurgan, Professor, Columbia University
About the Author:
Shourideh C. Molavi is a writer and scholar in political science and urban studies. She is the dedicated Palestine-Israel researcher at Forensic Architecture, an independent research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London, and teaches in the Department of Urban Studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland. She is the author of Stateless Citizenship: The Palestinian-Arab Citizens of Israel.
Eyal Weizman is an architect and the founding director of Forensic Architecture and Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of over 15 books, including Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation.