There is a form of violence that does not explode. It does not launch rockets or leave debris in slow motion. It is a violence made of endless waits, doors that do not open, paths that were once free and today are only for others. A violence of controls, walls and papers that decide who can cross and who must wait. In Palestine, this violence is called occupation. And in Nablus, these days, it is called confinement.
As of today, while international talks are still discussing the remnants of the ceasefire with Gaza, Israeli forces are closing off access to the Palestinian city. Checkpoints sealed, vehicles stopped for hours. A clear example is Nablus, the Palestinian city located north of the West Bank, located about 49 km north of Jerusalem. Its mountains that were once its natural shield, now act as part of the encirclement. Not because they have changed, but because they are now being watched. Every entrance and exit is guarded, every road can be closed in an instant.
Since the beginning of the year, Israeli military controls have grown like weeds. More than a dozen new roadblocks have been installed throughout the West Bank, and in Nablus, every access seems like a trap. Awarta, al-Muraba’ah, Sarra: all operate under the logic of permanent hold. No one crosses without showing papers. No one moves without authorization. In Nablus, freedom of transit is a memory, not a right.
Now Nablus is not just another city. It is a mirror-image of what is happening, with variations, in almost the whole of the West Bank: a fragmented territory, surrounded by nearly 900 checkpoints, in which the inhabitants move, if they can, inside a cage of invisible gates. Since January, at least 18 new barriers have been installed. As of October 2023, 146 more. The occupation no longer needs to move forward; it just needs to tighten.
The roads that cross mountains are divided between those who can use them and those who cannot. Isolated villages become inner islands. The strategy is clear and sustained: to prevent geographical Palestine from being also a connected Palestine. To separate to dominate. Cut the continuity to weaken the resistance.
A naturalized repression
Military controls are not exceptional. They are part of the routine. There are no sirens, but there is the constant presence of the man who wears the uniform, the gun, and the finger that indicates who can advance. This form of repression does not necessarily seek to punish an individual, but to remind him that he has no sovereignty over his territory, or even over his time.
And while soldiers impose their standards at the crossings, in the nearby hills settlers advance with other weapons: they burn, scare and attack. The violence of the settlers is not spontaneous, nor uncontrolled. It is part of the same script: dislodge by fear, replace by force. Where there were Palestinian communities, today there are outposts that will eventually become permanent settlements.
Living between barriers
The occupation does not need bullets to hurt. Sometimes it is enough not to let go. And that, in cities like Nablus, has become the norm. The big question is not why one more checkpoint was closed, but why the world learned to see this news as routine, as part of the conflict, as if confinement was an acceptable way to live.
Repression in Palestine does not always take the form of war, but it always takes the form of confinement. And if the history of this place teaches something, it is that no people accept to live forever behind a wall, whether physical or administrative. The non-peaceful siege. It only delays the explosion.
