Conquer and Divide

Forensic Architecture was commissioned by the Israeli NGO B’Tselem to produce an interactive web platform which retraces the various physical measures by which Israel has implemented its occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip since 1967.

In the West Bank, Israel has minimised Palestinian presence, condensing it into dozens of densely populated, isolated enclaves, while exploiting the region’s resources for its own benefit. In the Gaza Strip, nearly two million Palestinians are imprisoned in appalling conditions, exposed to persistent violence by Israeli security forces.

Direct or indirect control over the Occupied Palestinian Territories is enacted by a series of ever-shifting means of physical separation, which respond to changing legislative, legal, planning, funding, and defence rationales.

The result is a political project that operates through the fragmentation of Palestinian space, breaking apart the Palestinian polity, making it easier to rule and exploit, and shattering the social and spatial fabric of Palestinian communities.