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6.1 Disabling Palestinians

6.1 Disabling Palestinians

The maiming of Palestinians under Israeli settler-colonial rule is not incidental but an intentional strategy of governance. It functions as a method of incapacitation that restricts the participation of Indigenous people in society, denying them the opportunity to shape their futures and contribute to community development. By systematically inflicting life-altering injuries, through targeted shootings, physical assaults, and the obstruction of medical care, the Israeli state seeks to fracture resistance, curtailing not only physical mobility but also political and social agency.

Maiming operates as a form of punishment, deterrence, and long-term subjugation, ensuring that those who survive state violence do so with lasting impairments that limit their participation in both daily life and collective struggle. This practice of strategic incapacitation is deeply embedded in the broader settler-colonial logic, which aims to suppress Palestinian autonomy and erode and reshape the landscape of resistance. I want to start this section with an encounter I had in Ramallah in 2019, which I noted in my research journal:

I met a man in his early 20s. During our conversation, I noticed something off about his gaze; one of his eyes didn’t track movement. It remained still, unmoving. That evening revealed the harrowing story behind the man’s stationary gaze. He had been deliberately targeted by Israeli soldiers who had fired rubber bullets, aiming for people’s heads. The impact of a rubber bullet to the head could instantly be fatal, he told me. He had been fortunate in the worst possible way; the rubber bullet that struck his eye had lost some of its velocity, but it still had enough force to fracture his eye socket, resulting in the loss of his eye but not his life. (Research journal, April 2019).

The account of this man took place during the Second Intifada and is sadly not an isolated incident resulting from the Israeli tactics of maiming. Rubber bullets are commonly categorised as non-lethal weapons and used in various parts of the world. A study conducted by Ahmad Mahajna and colleagues (Mahajna et al. 2002)4 in October 2000, during the Second Intifada, analysed the medical records of individuals injured by rubber bullets. Among those injured, all of whom had been shot by rubber bullets, 61% experienced blunt injuries, while 39% had penetrating injuries. The severity of the injuries depended on factors such as the ballistic features of the bullet, the firing range, and the specific anatomical site of impact (Mahajna et al. 2002)4.

The study found that rubber bullets that hit the face often resulted in penetrating injuries, leading to “severe local injuries, bone fractures, and intracranial injuries that caused significant permanent disabilities” (Mahajna et al. 2002, 1798)4. In fact, according to C. A. Balouris, the most vulnerable part of the body to fatal rubber bullet injuries is the anterior region of the face due to its thin bony structures, with the eyes being particularly vulnerable (Balouris 1990)5. It is noteworthy that rubber bullets are notoriously difficult to aim accurately. The Israeli state has, as Jasbir K. Puar explains, manifested an “implicit claim to the ‘right to maim’1 and debilitate Palestinians and environments as a form of biopolitical control” (Puar 2017, 128)6. The maiming of bodies through Puar’s concept of the right to maim can be interpreted as a way to frighten Palestinians into submission (Peteet 1994; Zureik 2011)7 8.

As the following sections will outline, Palestinians are confronted with violence at checkpoints (see the previous chapter), including shooting and murder. At the same time, deliberate denial or delay in medical treatment further dehumanises and eliminates their lives. This comprehensive control system reflects the dynamics of biopower and colonialism. It is crucial to understand these oppressive structures as they are aimed at the slow erasure of identity and agency by targeting Palestinian bodies.

The preceding description highlights the maiming tactics employed by Israel against Palestinians, revealing how these acts are often carried out in close proximity rather than from a distance. While bullets fired from guns provide a level of detachment, the use of heavy rocks requires physical proximity and assistance to immobilise the targeted body. This deliberate maiming, known as “Breaking the Bones,” was frequently employed during the First Intifada, with Israeli soldiers under orders to break every bone in the bodies of Palestinians as a strategy endorsed by Yitzhak Rabin (Cooperman 2021)9. A video from the First Intifada depicts Israeli soldiers using rocks to break the bones of a Palestinian man held down by multiple soldiers2. The footage shows soldiers kicking the man and, at one point, a soldier picking up a rock while another holds out the target Palestinian man’s arm. The rock is then repeatedly struck against the bones until they are crushed.

The creation of disabled Palestinian bodies was also evident during the Great March of Return in Gaza from 2018 to 2019. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR 2019)10 report on the events up to 2018 reveals that Israeli soldiers aimed to disable Palestinians. Before the first demonstration, Israeli forces positioned additional troops and over 100 sharpshooters on earth mounds or berms to enhance visibility and shooting accuracy. Within these protected groups, 46 children, numerous healthcare workers, and journalists with identifiable professional affiliations were killed, along with several disabled Palestinians (UNHCR 2019; B'Tselem 2021)10 11.

Gaza has been subjected to an Israeli air, land, and sea blockade since Hamas won the elections in 2006, resulting in dire consequences for the 2 million Palestinians trapped in what is now recognised as the world’s largest open-air prison. The blockade has led to an urgent shortage of medical supplies. During the March of Return, Israeli sharpshooters targeted over 6,000 Palestinians, inflicting severe injuries, particularly in the lower limbs. A doctor described these injuries as “massive open wounds in the legs, with skin and muscles blown out, bones smashed to pieces, and damage to blood vessels leading to vascular injury, putting the entire limb at risk” (UNHCR 2019, 17)10. This not only overwhelmed the healthcare system in Gaza but also placed immense strain on the families of the wounded and disabled, who require ongoing care3.

Building upon the conclusions of Peteet and Zureik regarding the use of such violence to instil fear and submission, it can be argued that the debilitating violence inflicted aims to eradicate agency, not only in terms of resistance but also the ability to function within family, community, and society (Peteet 1994; Zureik 2011)7 8. In the cumulative effect of these injuries—physical, psychological, and infrastructural—the settler-colonial project seeks not only to impair individuals, but to unravel Palestinian society’s ability to resist, recover, and reimagine its future.

References

  1. Italics in original. ↩

  2. “Israel Breaking the Bones of Palestinians”, published by Palestine News. Cameraperson not mentioned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYQaYC65I-0 . Last accessed 14 December 2022. ↩

  3. With Israel’s genocide in Gaza still ongoing at the time of writing, the collapse of the healthcare system in Gaza is complete. Hospitals have been bombed into oblivion, raided, and detonated. Countless patients murdered and healthcare workers systematically assassinated. ↩

  4. Mahajna, Ahmad, Nabil Aboud, Ibrahim Harbaji, et al. 2002. "Blunt and Penetrating Injuries Caused by Rubber Bullets During the Israeli-Arab Conflict in October, 2000: A Retrospective Study." The Lancet 359 (9320): 1795--800. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(02)08708-1. ↩↩↩

  5. Balouris, C. A. 1990. "Rubber and Plastic Bullet Eye Injuries in Palestine." The Lancet 335 (8686): 415. https://doi.org/10.1016/0140-6736(90)90252-Z. ↩

  6. Puar, Jasbir K. 2017. The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. Duke University Press. ↩

  7. Peteet, Julie. 1994. "Male Gender and Rituals of Resistance in the Palestinian \"Intifada\": A Cultural Politics of Violence." American Ethnologist 21 (1): 31--49. https://www.jstor.org/stable/646520. ↩↩

  8. Zureik, Elia. 2011. "Colonialism, Surveillance, and Population Control Israel/Palestine." In Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine: Population, Territory, and PowerSurveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine, edited by Elia Zureik, David Lyon, and Yasmeen Abu-Laban. Routledge. ↩↩

  9. Cooperman, Hilary. 2021. "Pushing Through the Skin to Break the Bones: Israel's Performance of Extraterritorial Expansion into West Bank, Palestine." Culture, Theory and Critique 62 (1-2): 76--95. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2021.1925135. ↩

  10. UNHCR. 2019. Report of the Detailed Findings of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 2. United Nations Human Rights Council. ↩↩↩

  11. B'Tselem. 2021. 2020 in the Occupied Territories: Heinous Killings, Settler Violence and a Home Demolitions Spike. Https://www.btselem.org/press\ _releases/20210104\ _2020\ _in\ _the\ _occupied\ _territories\ _criminal\ _killings\ _settler\ _violence\ _and\ _a\ _spike\ _in\ _home\ _demolitions. ↩