Resistance Practices in Warfare Conditions: The Case of Gaza in Palestine

Abstract

This article examines the spatial, ecological, and social impacts of protracted conflict in the Gaza Strip, using the interrelated concepts of urbicide, ecocide, and everyday resistance to analyze how warfare transforms environments and daily life. Gaza’s history of occupation, blockade, and environmental degradation provides a paradigmatic case for understanding how conflict-induced crises produce complex hazards that affect both human and nonhuman systems. Drawing on empirical material gathered in 2024 and 2025, including citizen documentation, visual media, and spatial analysis, the article explores how Gazans respond to overlapping forms of violence through localized acts of survival, care, and repair. These practices, conceptualized as forms of resilient resistance, reveal how everyday life persists under siege through material improvisation, spatial adaptation, and deeply rooted cultural strategies such as sumud (steadfastness). In doing so, the article contributes to hazard science by foregrounding the role of informal, embodied, and community-based responses to compound crises. It demonstrates how spatial agency and ecological continuity are maintained even in conditions of infrastructural collapse and political erasure. The analysis offers broader insights into the politics of recovery, the environmental dimensions of conflict, and the relevance of everyday resistance for understanding resilience in extreme contexts.