The Palestinian issue is not just Gaza: Beyond the headlines, a systemic crisis

by Tareq Alnajjar

Israeli forces take security measures as Israelis, who are under the protection of Israeli police, raid in the Hebron city, West Bank on November 22, 2025. [Wisam Hashlamoun – Anadolu Agency]

When confrontations erupt in Gaza, global attention intensifies. Images of destruction dominate news cycles, political statements multiply, and diplomatic initiatives proliferate. Yet the moment violence subsides, international engagement fades just as quickly. This recurring pattern stems not from conflict resolution, but from a fundamental misunderstanding: the world reacts to visible escalations while overlooking the deeper system that produces them. Gaza captures headlines, but represents only one fragment of a much broader and more entrenched crisis. The narrow focus on the Strip distorts the overall political picture and obstructs sustainable solutions.

Why the world falls into the trap of “Gaza-centrism”

Gaza dominates international coverage not because it embodies the entire Palestinian issue, but because it is its most easily framed component. The Strip’s density, cyclical destruction, and geographical isolation enable global media to present it as a self-contained emergency. For policymakers, it offers a simplified narrative: a defined territory, clear actors, and a visible humanitarian crisis. This simplicity makes Gaza “legible” in ways that the broader Palestinian experience is not.

In contrast, the reality in the West Bank is bureaucratic, fragmented, and visually elusive. East Jerusalem’s legal complexities—where displacement occurs through administrative measures—rarely sustain global attention. Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship challenge binary categories and complicate conventional conflict narratives. Meanwhile, refugees in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan endure a normalised crisis through decades of inaction. This fragmentation allows Gaza to become a misleading shorthand that eclipses the interconnected dimensions of Palestinian reality.

The five Palestinian realities

Understanding the systemic nature of the conflict requires recognising that Palestinians live within five distinct sociopolitical frameworks, each producing different but interrelated forms of marginalisation.

Refugees in the diaspora:

Millions displaced since 1948 live in conditions of suspended temporality. Their legal status remains precarious, with severely limited socio-economic prospects. The gradual erosion of international commitment has turned their plight into a persistent yet overlooked crisis.

Palestinians inside Israel (Arab ’48):

Although formally citizens, they experience institutional discrimination. Restrictions in land allocation, housing, and political participation reinforce a hierarchy embedded in the state’s institutional design, creating a fundamental tension between citizenship and national identity.

Palestinians in the West Bank:

Here, control is enacted through an extensive administrative apparatus. The permit regime, settlement expansion, movement restrictions, and home demolitions shape everyday life. These function not as temporary security measures, but as permanent mechanisms defining spatial, economic, and demographic realities.

Palestinians in Gaza:

The Strip exists under a blockade that restricts movement, trade, and development. Chronic unemployment, collapsed infrastructure, and repeated military operations create a permanent humanitarian emergency—yet international discourse often reduces Gaza to a mere security file.

Palestinians in Jerusalem:

They inhabit a space of legal ambiguity. Residency rights face revocation, housing remains vulnerable to expropriation, and urban planning systematically diminishes Palestinian presence through calculated bureaucratic measures.

Collectively, these realities reveal that the Palestinian issue is not a simple territorial dispute, but a multilayered system of population management.

The hidden face of occupation: Bureaucracy as control

While international debates focus on rockets and ceasefires, the system’s foundation lies in its bureaucratic mechanisms. The permit regime functions not merely as security, but as a structure manufacturing dependency and reinforcing power asymmetries. Home demolitions operate within planning frameworks that restrict Palestinian development while enabling settlement expansion. Control over water, land, and movement transforms essential resources into instruments of pressure.

This bureaucratic dimension remains largely invisible to external observers, yet decisively shapes Palestinian daily life. Its effectiveness lies in regulating existence through administrative procedures rather than overt force. The cumulative effect is a predictable pattern of fragmentation and instability, even without open conflict.

Conclusion: The imperative of a systemic lens

The Palestinian issue transcends Gaza. The Strip represents the most visible manifestation of a wider structure encompassing the West Bank, Jerusalem, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and refugees across the region. Political initiatives that isolate Gaza from its context, or prioritise ceasefires over structural reform, will inevitably fail. A viable approach must acknowledge the interconnected nature of these realities and address the mechanisms that sustain them.

For international actors—including Russia, which seeks a stabilising regional role—the challenge lies in transitioning from crisis management to addressing root causes. The current approach of treating symptoms without curing the underlying condition guarantees only further cycles of violence and instability. Sustainable peace requires dismantling the system itself, not merely managing its periodic explosions.