The Virus, the Settler, and the Siege: Gaza in the Age of Corona
Special Feature: 
Keywords: 
siege
Gaza
pandemic
surveillance
settler colonialism
Covid-19
tracking
power relatios
Abstract: 

This essay explores the challenges and opportunities that the Covid-19 pandemic has afforded Israel as it broadens its settler-colonial objectives internally, in Gaza, and elsewhere. In particular, it sheds light on the heightened militaristic and economic approaches taken by Israel to further entrench its siege of Palestinians in Gaza and to export increasingly advanced technologies of surveillance and state control long deployed against the Palestinian people. This investigation thus offers an opportunity to probe settler colonialism’s strategic opportunism in the face of the historic pandemic.

Author biography: 

Ghassan Abu-Sittah is codirector of the Conflict Medicine Program, Global Health Institute, American University of Beirut.