British Mandate (1917–1948)

The British Mandate period institutionalized the political and ecological frameworks for Zionist settler-colonialism. Zionist institutions, most notably the Jewish National Fund (JNF), were granted privileged status to acquire land from absentee Ottoman landlords, systematically dispossessing Palestinian tenant farmers (fellahin). This land was designated as inalienable Jewish property in perpetuity. Concurrently, companies like Solel Boneh began constructing the strategic infrastructure—roads, housing, and utilities—that would service a growing Jewish state.

A key ecological strategy involved large-scale afforestation projects. The JNF planted millions of non-native, fast-growing pine and eucalyptus trees. These trees were not benign; they were a form of "ecological warfare" designed to alter the landscape, claim territory, and replace indigenous ecosystems of olive, carob, and fig groves. The acidic needles of the pines sterilized the soil, preventing the regrowth of native flora and making the land unusable for traditional Palestinian agriculture. This period established the twin pillars of the ongoing Nakba: territorial dispossession and deliberate ecological transformation.

1948 Nakba & State Formation (1948–1967)

The 1948 war culminated in the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians and the destruction of more than 500 villages. The new State of Israel, in partnership with the JNF, enacted a series of laws to confiscate refugee land, formally legalizing the dispossession.

The ecological dimension of this erasure was methodical. The JNF launched a campaign to plant "public parks and forests" over the rubble of demolished villages—a strategy of greenwashing designed to physically conceal the evidence of depopulation, block the return of refugees, and reimagine the landscape as an empty terrain redeemed by Jewish labor. Forests like Canada Park, built over the ruins of Imwas, Yalo, and Beit Nuba, became recreational sites that literally buried Palestinian history. This era cemented a state system where land ownership, forestry, and archaeology became tools of nationalistic erasure, embedding the Nakba into the very soil.

Occupation & Settlement Expansion (1967–1993)

The 1967 war marked the beginning of Israel's military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The state immediately began a massive project of constructing settlements and military infrastructure on confiscated land, fragmenting Palestinian territory into disconnected enclaves.

This was enabled by international and Israeli corporate partners. Caterpillar Inc. became a cornerstone of the occupation, supplying the D9 armored bulldozers used for demolitions, land clearing, and building settler-only bypass roads. Israeli construction giants like Shikun & Binui and Mayer’s Cars & Trucks built the settlements and industrial zones themselves. The JNF continued its afforestation projects, now in the occupied West Bank, using parks to seize land and create "facts on the ground." This period saw the rise of a military-industrial-construction complex directly profiting from and enabling the ecological fragmentation of Palestinian life.

Oslo Accords & Territorial Fragmentation (1993–2000)

The Oslo Accords did not end the occupation; they bureaucratized it. The division of the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C created a fragmented geography of control, where Israel retained direct authority over over 60% of the land (Area C). This allowed for the accelerated expansion of settlements and bypass roads during the so-called "peace process," further encircling and isolating Palestinian population centers.

"Green" projects became a powerful tool for legitimizing this control. The JNF and other agencies promoted environmental initiatives and parks that masked ongoing land confiscation. Meanwhile, Israeli water company Mekorot consolidated its control over Palestinian aquifers, systematically diverting water resources to settlements while restricting Palestinian access, creating a stark hydro-apartheid system. The Oslo era demonstrated how ecological violence could be rebranded through the language of environmentalism and sustainable development, all while deepening the physical reality of apartheid.

Gaza Blockade & Slow Violence (2007–2023)

In 2007, Israel imposed a comprehensive land, air, and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, transforming it into an open-air prison for over 2 million people. This instituted a regime of "slow violence" (Nixon, 2011): a gradual, attritional destruction that occurs out of sight.

The blockade systematically targeted Gaza's life-sustaining infrastructure. Restrictions on importing materials prevented the maintenance of water and sanitation systems, leading to the collapse of the coastal aquifer and the routine flooding of raw sewage. Repeated military assaults (2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2021) bombarded agricultural land, water facilities, and electricity networks.

This period saw the deep integration of digital technology and surveillance into the architecture of control. Companies like Elbit Systems supplied drones and surveillance systems used in attacks and enforcement of the "buffer zone." Cisco and Microsoft provided the core networking and cloud infrastructure for Israeli military and intelligence data centers, enabling the mass surveillance and data processing that underpinned the blockade. The slow violence was both physical and digital, creating a managed humanitarian crisis.

2023–Present: Acute Ecological Destruction & Genocide

The Israeli assault on Gaza that began in October 2023 represents a catastrophic acceleration from slow violence to acute, systematic ecocide and genocide. This is a deliberate campaign of total environmental destruction designed to dismantle the conditions for life and render the Gaza Strip uninhabitable.

The assault has been characterized by the weaponization of famine and the deliberate dehydration of a population. As stated by UN experts, “This catastrophe was not only predictable; it was predicted. Israel’s blockade and destruction of civilian infrastructure has left most of Gaza’s two million residents displaced and without access to the minimum vital amount of drinking water.” Eighty-nine per cent of Gaza's water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed by Israeli forces, a deliberate strategy that has led to deaths and widespread illness from water pollution and a lack of sanitation.

This hydrological annihilation is compounded by the systematic erasure of the territory's physical landscape. Using Caterpillar D9 bulldozers, Israeli forces have levelled entire urban neighborhoods, agricultural lands, and university campuses, destroying over 60% of Gaza’s homes and vast swathes of its fertile farmland. This physical destruction is facilitated by a digital infrastructure of mass killing. Unit 8200’s AI-based targeting systems like "Lavender" and "Habsora" (The Gospel) generated targets at an industrial scale, while tech corporations like Microsoft provided the essential cloud infrastructure for processing the surveillance data required for these automated operations.

This period represents not merely a military operation but the logical culmination of decades of ecological dispossession. It integrates the territorial fragmentation of Oslo, the digital surveillance of the blockade era, and the brute force of the occupation into a single, devastating project of elimination. The scale of the destruction—of life, land, water, and future possibility—meets the international legal definition of ecocide and represents a deliberate strategy to destroy the very foundations of life in Gaza.