What Changes For Palestine?
Updated: 3 hours ago
Israel’s next Knesset election is scheduled for October 27, 2026 (for anyone paying attention that's exactly one week before the US midterms), and foreign/security policy is unusually central because the vote follows years of conflict involving Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. Since by way of AIPAC, in particular, Israel has it hands (to the tune of tens of millions) in American politics, we should be paying closer attention to the politics of Israel.
According to reporting from Reuters, currently no candidate is the clear front-runner and Yashar and Likud are locked in a dead-heat with the same number of estimated seats. As the third anniversary of the October 7th attacks against Israel by Hamas passes, there are two other dates in the month that should command our attention as an international community, but somehow they escape us. And those dates would be October 6, 2023 and October 28, 2026.
In other words, what was life like those in Gaza before the attacks of October 7th of 2023 and how will Paletenians fare after the elections of October 27th of 2026? Let's attempt to cast our sights beyond the haze of this clear and present genocide, to grasp some of the facts of everyday life for Palestinians. Israel controlled (and still controls) practically, every aspect of Palestinian life.
Gaza & the West Bank October 6, 2023
Occupation controlled housing: This past October 5th was World Habitat and that cruel irony highlights the current state of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Before the war, Gaza was home to approximately 2.2 million Palestinians living within just 365 square kilometers (141 square miles), making it one of the world's most densely populated territories. As a result, overcrowding was a chief problem under Israeli occupation. Large and extended families frequently shared relatively small apartments or houses. Population growth, poverty, construction costs, and restrictions affected building materials making it difficult to meet demand
Previous Israeli bombardment of infrastructures, in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021 left homes not being fully repaired or replaced
Palestinians, many times, in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem were (and are) forced to build homes without permits because Israel refuses to grant them - Israeli authorities even, typically, require Palestinian residents to pay for the bulldozing of their own homes. At least 10,700 Palestinian-owned structures in the occupied West Bank have been demolished, displacing more than 16,000 people, since 2009, according to the UN. It is much worse now, but this was Gaza & the West Bank October 6, 2023.
Occupation controlled Water: In September 2023, Palestinians in both the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank faced substantial restrictions on access to water and electricity. However, the severity of those restrictions differed considerably.
Gaza experienced a chronic water and electricity crisis, with widespread dependence on contaminated groundwater, desalination facilities, water deliveries, and limited daily electricity supplies. The West Bank generally had more reliable electricity and better access to drinking water, but Palestinian communities experienced significant disparities in water distribution, infrastructure development, and control over resources.
A United Nations report issued in 2023 established that approximately 96% of the water from Gaza's coastal aquifer was unfit for human consumption. Excessive groundwater extraction, seawater intrusion, and contamination had seriously compromised its quality.
This did not mean that 96% of residents had no drinking water. Rather, the principal groundwater source was largely unsafe to drink without treatment. Residents relied on desalinated water, private water vendors, and other supplies.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) reported that in 2023:
- Approximately 85.9 million cubic meters of water were purchased from Israel for the West Bank.
- Purchased Israeli water accounted for approximately 60% of water supplied for domestic use.
- Israel controlled important aspects of the quantities and prices of water sold to Palestinian authorities.
Water infrastructure also depended on electricity to pump groundwater, operate desalination equipment, and treat sewage. Consequently, power shortages directly reduced access to water.
Access to drinkable water in Gaza averaged 78 liters per person daily, below the World Health Organization's recommended 100 liters. Circumstances are more dire now, but this was Gaza & West Bank October 6, 2023.
Occupation Controlled Electricity: Before October 7, Gaza had an operating electricity distribution network, but the supply was insufficient to meet demand. Many households received approximately 8–12 hours of electricity daily, although the actual duration varied.
The principal sources were electricity imported from Israel and generation from Gaza's only power plant, which required fuel. Limited supply meant that electricity had to be distributed through scheduled outages.
The consequences were extensive: refrigeration, hospital operations, municipal water pumping, wastewater treatment, and household activities were disrupted. Families and businesses with sufficient resources sometimes used generators, batteries, or solar power.
Electricity availability in the West Bank was substantially better than in Gaza.
Most major Palestinian population centers, including Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, and Hebron, had functioning electricity networks with generally continuous service.
Unlike Gaza, the West Bank did not experience a territory-wide system of scheduled daily blackouts lasting approximately half the day.
Nevertheless, important problems remained. The West Bank depended heavily on electricity imported from Israel, and Palestinian electricity infrastructure faced limitations involving grid capacity, investment, permits, and the ability to expand networks in areas under Israeli administrative control. And yes, now the concerns are more desperate, but this was Gaza/West Bank October 6, 2023.
Occupation Controlled Employment/Livelihood: Before dawn, Palestinian workers by the tens of thoussnds, driven like cattle, squeeze into caged lanes to wait to pass Israeli military checkpoints on their way to work.
Israel, with its heavy restrictions on Palestinian movement and resources, has driven Palestinian unemployment rates to the third highest in the world.
Before the genocide began in October 2023, Gaza and the West Bank faced dramatically different employment conditions. Both Palestinian territories experienced substantial unemployment, but Gaza's labor market was in a much deeper crisis, characterized by widespread joblessness, limited private-sector opportunities, restrictions on movement, and heavy dependence on employment outside the territory.
The following comparison uses labor-market data available immediately before the war, primarily from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the International Labour Organization (ILO). Because September-specific employment statistics were not generally published as standalone monthly figures, the closest comparable prewar quarterly and annual estimates provide the most reliable picture.
Gaza's unemployment rate was approximately 3.5 times the West Bank's. Nearly one in two Gaza residents participating in the labor force was unemployed, compared with approximately one in eight in the West Bank.Gaza's employment crisis also extended well the raw employment number The low wages of the jobs worked put approximately 93% of Gaza's private-sector wage employees below the Palestinian minimum wage of 1,880 New Israeli shekels (NIS) per month.
Moreover, among employees earning below the minimum wage, the average monthly wage was 736 NIS in Gaza, compared with 1,432 NIS in the West Bank. And, across the Palestinian territories workers struggled with job insecurity, roughly 56% of private-sector wage employees worked without employment contracts
What pre-genocide working Palestinians also experienced was an extreme dependance on government employment. Gaza had approximately 84,000 government employees, compared with 121,000 in the West Bank, despite having a substantially smaller employed workforce.
According to the ILO, Gaza's October 6th labor market was constrained by the Israeli blockade, restrictions on the movement of workers and goods, limited investment opportunities, and the erosion of productive economic capacity. The Israeli control over Palestinian movement is akin apartheid-South Africa and the Slave/Black codes & Native American reservation placement of US history. An impoverished people is a more easily-conquered people.
OCHA's August 2023 movement assessment documented 645 fixed movement obstacles throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the H2 area of Hebron.
These included checkpoints, roadblocks, gates and other barriers. They complicated access to schools, hospitals, agricultural land, workplaces and humanitarian services.The repression is all the more extreme now, but this was Gaza & the West Bank October 6, 2023.
Let's cast that same purposeful gaze to the present and the future. We are now hearing a bevy of, mostly, Democratic political figures (like Hilary Clinton, Chuck Shumer, Hakeem Jeffries to name a few) stepping forward to be openly critical of Netanyahu, though not of Israel itself, as if to say that a change in leadership would be a change in policy in regard to Palestine. So let us view those various stances and positions to see if such a perspective is true.
Gaza & the West Bank October 28, 2026?
Gadi Eisenkot — Yashar
Stated Gaza Policy: Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff and war-cabinet member, offers a different strategic argument: Israel has accumulated tactical military victories but has often failed to convert them into durable political arrangements.
Eisenkot says he supports retaining a significant Israeli security zone but argues that Hamas cannot simply be weakened militarily and then left governing Gaza. States that he is more willing than Netanyahu to involve outside actors in constructing a replacement government. Says he's skeptical of the Palestinian Authority, reporting on his proposals indicates that he regards continued Hamas rule as worse than a PA role if those are the alternatives. In his public pronouncements, he makes little to no reference to the Palestinian people. So what changes for Palestine?
Naftali Bennett — Beyachad
Stated Gaza Policy: Former prime minister Naftali Bennett is also hawkish on security. Bennett says he wants Turkey and Qatar removed from Gaza's postwar political arrangements and Egypt given a larger role. He simultaneously promises to preserve Israeli military freedom of action inside Gaza. Wanting to remove Turkey and Qatar from any post-hostilities towards Palestine would be eliminating two actors who have demonstrated substantial political, diplomatic, and humanitarian support for Palestinians. So business as usual - if not worse - continues for Palestine.
Avigdor Liberman — Yisrael Beytenu
Stated Gaza Policy: Liberman remains one of the most consistently hawkish opposition leaders (he's also a protoge of Netanyahu). Gaza/Hamas, Lebanon/Hezbollah and Iran are deliberately grouped together in his doctrine. He argues that Israel must stop accepting repeated rounds of fighting followed by temporary ceasefires and instead pursue what he calls “decisive outcomes.”
Liberman resigned as defense minister in 2018 because he opposed a ceasefire with Hamas, which he regarded as insufficiently forceful. In the current campaign his party describes its objective as achieving decisive military outcomes against all three adversaries. Here it would appear he sees Gaza as an enemy, making no distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian people.
Yair Golan — The Democrats
Stated Gaza Policy: Golan, a former IDF deputy chief of staff, states that Hamas cannot remain in power, but argues that military action alone cannot remove it permanently. His proposal is for Israel to work with regional and international partners to establish a moderate Palestinian governing authority to replace Hamas.
He says he believes that as long as Hamas governs Gaza, it can tax residents, rebuild forces and reconstruct tunnels. The strategic objective therefore should be changing Gaza's government rather than merely degrading Hamas periodically. Although Golan tamps down the violent rhetoric towards Gaza, he offers nothing positive in regards to the future of Palestinians.
Itamar Ben-Gvir — Otzma Yehudit
Stated Gaza Policy: Ben-Gvir advocates one of the most expansive military policies toward Gaza.He opposes ceasefires or hostage agreements that leave Hamas intact and advocates continued offensive operations until what he calls complete military victory.
During the campaign he has advocated frequent strikes and introduced his “Disengagement 710” proposal (710 to reference October 7th), which calls for encouraging the departure of Gaza's Palestinian population and establishing a government ministry devoted to implementing that policy. His published plan envisions 250,000 departures in its first year and approximately 1.86 million over seven years.
He also opposes Palestinian statehood and favors expanded Israeli sovereignty/control over Palestinian territory. In other words, a Palestine without Palestinian people.
Bezalel Smotrich — Religious Zionism
Stated Gaza Policy: He has called for Israel to annex territory currently controlled by the IDF in Gaza rather than treating Israeli control solely as a temporary security measure. Smotrich has also made calls for the same hostilities that Israel has launched against Gaza, be done in the West Bank ss well, thereby multiplying the pain to Palestinians.
Ofer Winter — People of Israel
Stated Gaza Policy: Former IDF general Ofer Winter is another candidate from the nationalist right. His Gaza program calls for encouraging Palestinian emigration from Gaza, alongside a strongly military conception of Israeli security. At his party launch, he made Gaza emigration a major policy commitment, and in subsequent interviews has emphasized prioritizing Israeli soldiers' safety in combat decisions. It goes without saying what fate Palestine would face under his governance.
Yes, it is Netanyahu who has presided over a genocide that has claimed close to 75,000 reported lives (there are many unclaimed still under the rubble of created by countless made-in-the-USA bombs). Yes it is Netanyahu who has led a campaign that has claimed the lives of approximately 21,000 children; wounded 175,000 people (1 out 13 people in Gaza) and laid waste to nearly 330,000 homes - not to mention destroying structures with great cultural and historical significance.
Nevertheless, can it be said that if any of the above candidates and their parties were in power the outcomes would have been any different? If not worse? Their positions vary from apathetic paternalism to outright ethnic cleansing and complete annexation. Does any of that sound like a just resolution can be reached for Palestine?
What the positions of the various candidates also tells us, is that disregard for the rights of Palestinians is not a bug in the Israeli body politic, but a feature. There's not one that even questions the apartheid-reality of the Palestinian. Which means that no matter who's the captain of the ship of state of Israel they will continue to hit the iceberg of occupation. And yes, the fuel of that ship is Zionism.
By all means, remember, with great grief, the catastrophic loss of Israeli life on October 7th - remember also that Netanyahu received a warning days before the attacks and didn't even brief his security chiefs. Remember also, that Netanyahu's former military secretary stated that the prime minister avoided pursuing a hostage-release deal for political reasons, extending the captives' suffering and contributing to deaths in captivity. Remember it all.
There is far more I could have included when outlining the October 6, 2023 existence of Palestinians: Israeli settlements, the roughly 62% of the 2.1 million Palestinians that was dependant on international food assistance; the thousands of Palestinian children living with life altering injuries as a result of IDF actions; the approximately 94% of schools operating on double shifts because of the lack of buildings and classroom space and on and on. One continuing despotic Ground Hog Day for Palestine.
In the run-up to the October 27th elections I'm reminded of Frederick Douglass asking this question centuries ago: what is the 4th of July to the slave? Given the positions of the various Israeli candidates that query can be paraphrased for a new millennia and a new people, what is October 28th to the Palestinian?
On point analysis of the Israeli mindset in regards to Palestine.
Brilliant article. Infuriating 😡 Heartbreaking 💔 The flag truly represents the ongoing genocide. You succinctly laid out the composed timeline of consequences. Graphs you constructed give concise explanation of what you expound upon. The analogies (the Titanic, Ground Hog Day and Frederick Douglass's words) resonate with the cruel and haunting reality of Palestinians' collective future.
THANK YOU for shedding light on this darkness🕯