From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject A New Wave of Palestinian Popular Struggle Takes Root
Date August 9, 2025 12:55 AM
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A NEW WAVE OF PALESTINIAN POPULAR STRUGGLE TAKES ROOT  
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Awad Abdelfattah
August 6, 2025
+972 Magazine
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_ Amid growing outrage over Gaza, protests and hunger strikes mark a
renewed Palestinian movement determined to bridge division and sustain
resistance. _

Palestinian citizens of Israel protest against Israel's genocide in
Gaza, in the northern city of Sakhnin, July 25, 2025, photo Jamal
Awad/Flash90

 

In recent weeks, Palestinian grassroots mobilization has gathered
remarkable momentum, particularly within the 1948 territories and the
occupied West Bank. This surge reflects a growing effort to reconnect
with a reinvigorated wave of global solidarity that has persisted, and
even expanded, despite severe crackdowns
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pro-Palestinian movements across the United States and much of Europe.

All signs suggest that this momentum will continue to grow,
potentially building toward a broader popular uprising, one capable of
pushing back against Israel’s brutal policies toward Palestinians
across the land.

The harrowing images from Gaza — emaciated children
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families repeatedly driven from their homes
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being shot dead while waiting for food
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become impossible for Israel’s allies to ignore or explain away.
These images have begun to haunt Western governments long complicit in
Israel’s genocidal campaign, shaming them in the court of public
opinion and exposing the moral bankruptcy of their silence.

Under mounting pressure from their own citizens, several Western
states have recently sharpened their criticism of Israel’s conduct
in Gaza: the unrelenting pace of killings, the deliberate obstruction
of humanitarian aid, the apparent absence of any plan to end the war.

Perhaps the most high-profile rebukes have come in the form of formal
recognition (or threats
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recognition) of the State of Palestine by a handful of Western heads
of state, most notably France’s Emmanuel Macron
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declarations, however dramatic on paper, remain largely symbolic. The
“two-state solution” they gesture toward is widely seen as both
illusory and inadequate — preserving Israel’s colonial apartheid
regime and denying millions of Palestinian refugees their right of
return.

Even if these pronouncements are unlikely to have substantial
practical implications, however, they are nevertheless an important
gesture of support, and a much needed morale boost to the popular
movement that opens the door to a new phase of thinking and action.

[Palestinians and solidarity activists protest the ongoing starvation
and genocide in Gaza, in Jaffa, central Israel, July 25, 2025. (Oren
Ziv/Activestills)]
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Palestinians and solidarity activists protest the ongoing starvation
and genocide in Gaza, in Jaffa, central Israel, July 25, 2025. (Oren
Ziv/Activestills)
Palestinians and solidarity activists protest the ongoing starvation
and genocide in Gaza, in Jaffa, central Israel, July 25, 2025. (Oren
Ziv/Activestills)

A CHANGING LANDSCAPE

Palestinian protesters and their allies are closely tracking shifts in
the region’s geopolitical balance of power. With Washington’s
unwavering backing, Israel now acts with near-total impunity across
the territory of the so-called Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance.”
Yet despite the heavy blows Iran has suffered in its recent 12-day war
with Israel, it remains far from defeated. Both sides are racing to
expand [[link removed]] their military
buildup in preparation for an even bloodier and more destructive phase
of the conflict.

But for now, with the balance of power tilted heavily toward Israel,
many Palestinian activists are turning inward — toward grassroots
popular resistance — in the absence of any external military force
capable of reining in Israeli aggression. And there are reasons to
believe this strategy can work.

Despite its military dominance, Israel’s global standing — even
among Jews worldwide — is more fragile than ever. In June, as chair
of the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), I attended and spoke at
an extraordinary event: the “First Jewish Anti-Zionist Conference
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birthplace of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of the Zionist
movement. The organizers brought together some 500 Jewish
intellectuals and activists from around the world, aiming to unite the
growing number of anti-Zionist Jews and integrate them into the
broader global progressive movement against Israel’s genocidal
regime.

With the horrors it is inflicting on Gaza and the escalating
state-sanctioned violence in the West Bank, Israel can no longer
polish its image abroad, nor can its propaganda conceal its crimes.
Some argue that Israel still does not grasp the scale of the
reputational and strategic damage it is inflicting on itself —
damage that may soon prove irreversible. In this context, a strategy
of sustained, globally connected popular resistance is no longer just
viable; it is a historical necessity.

In recent years, we’ve witnessed several attempts to advance this
path — most notably the series of protests at the Gaza border in
2018-2019 collectively known as the “Great March of Return.” From
the very outset, these marches were met with bloody repression
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army, aimed at suppressing their powerful resonance with global public
opinion.

[Israeli forces face Palestinian protesters during the "Great March
of Return," at the Israeil-Gaza border, November 1, 2019. (Abed Rahim
Khatib/Flash90)]
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Israeli forces face Palestinian protesters during the
Israeli forces face Palestinian protesters during the “Great March
of Return,” at the Israeil-Gaza border, November 1, 2019. (Abed
Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Yet the momentum of those protests never reached the West Bank. This
was due in part to the fragile political climate there, and to the
absence of any coherent vision for popular resistance within the
Palestinian Authority. Bound by its security coordination with Israel,
the PA has actively undermined independent grassroots mobilization,
working in close cooperation with the colonizer to prevent it from
taking root.

In May 2021, a broad popular uprising
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across all of Palestine, from the river to the sea. For a brief
moment, it seemed poised to evolve into a sustained, nationwide
campaign of civilian resistance. But the introduction of a military
dimension — in the form of rocket fire from Hamas — disrupted the
momentum and blunted the potential of that civilian-led path. The
opportunity was there despite Israel’s crackdown; it simply did not
fully materialize
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These missed opportunities have strengthened the conviction among many
that grassroots resistance — legal, cultural, and artistic —
remains among the most promising means of challenging Israeli
domination, perhaps even more so than military force. Even Israeli
analysts now concede that the events of October 7 and the subsequent
war have shaken the prestige of the Israeli military; a prestige that,
despite decades of criminal actions, had remained remarkably intact.

Meanwhile, the struggle continues abroad: in international courts, in
cultural arenas, in the streets, and on university campuses. As
Israel’s crimes become harder to conceal, new waves of outrage and
solidarity are reshaping media coverage and political debate. It is on
these battlefields, where violations of international law become
liabilities for the perpetrators, that the edifice of apartheid and
genocide may ultimately begin to collapse.

A SPARK FROM SAKHNIN

A recent development signals a potential turning point in mobilization
among Palestinian citizens of Israel. The northern city of Sakhnin saw
thousands converge for a massive protest
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in Gaza, while in Jaffa, several leading figures, including
Palestinian MKs and members of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab
Citizens of Israel launched a three-day hunger strike
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Particularly striking was the substantial presence of anti-occupation
Israeli Jews, an encouraging sign for the future of genuine
co-resistance.

[Palestinian citizens of Israel protest against Israel's genocide in
Gaza, in the northern city of Sakhnin, July 25, 2025. (Jamal
Awad/Flash90)]
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Palestinian citizens of Israel protest against Israel's genocide in
Gaza, in the northern city of Sakhnin, July 25, 2025. (Jamal
Awad/Flash90)
Palestinian citizens of Israel protest against Israel’s genocide in
Gaza, in the northern city of Sakhnin, July 25, 2025. (Jamal
Awad/Flash90)

From Sakhnin, protests spread quickly to other Palestinian towns
inside the 1948 territories — across the Galilee, the Triangle, the
Naqab, and the coastal region. And now, crucially, echoes of this
movement are beginning to resonate in the West Bank, even as
Palestinians there remain caught between the dual repression of
Israeli occupation forces and their PA collaborators.

Inspired by the hunger strike of Palestinian leaders inside Israel,
activists and national figures in the West Bank have begun their own
strike
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not only in solidarity with Gaza, but also as a means of political
reawakening. Hunger strikers in Ramallah, whom I joined for a day,
spoke candidly about drawing direct inspiration from the mobilization
of Palestinian citizens of Israel and their leadership.

Are we witnessing the first steps toward a unified popular movement
capable of forcing real change? It is still too early to say. But one
thing is clear: Palestinians can no longer afford the paralysis of
political stagnation. What happens next will depend on internal
dynamics, and on whether movement leaders can think strategically
enough to build the engine, structure, and framework capable of
driving this historic transformation forward.

_A version of this article was first published in Arabic on __Arab48_
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_Awad Abdelfattah is the coordinator of the One Democratic State
Campaign (ODSC) and the former secretary general of the Balad party._

_+972 Magazine [[link removed]] is an independent,
online, nonprofit magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli
journalists. Founded in 2010, our mission is to provide in-depth
reporting, analysis, and opinions from the ground in Israel-Palestine.
The name of the site is derived from the telephone country code that
can be used to dial throughout Israel-Palestine._

_Our core values are a commitment to equity, justice, and freedom of
information. We believe in accurate and fair journalism that
spotlights the people and communities working to oppose occupation and
apartheid, and that showcases perspectives often overlooked or
marginalized in mainstream narratives._

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* Palestine
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* Gaza
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* Israel
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