For decades, the international response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has centred on the search for a political settlement.

Today, this strategy increasingly misses the more urgent issue: Palestinian civilian life and social structures are in grave danger because of the continuing colonisation of Palestine.

In Gaza, a genocidal war has killed more than 74,000 people and created the conditions for excess deaths of tens of thousands more. It has wiped out whole neighbourhoods, critical infrastructure and forced the education and healthcare systems into collapse.

In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, different mechanisms of destruction operate: Settler and military violence, forced displacement, restrictions on movement, loss of access to agricultural land and livelihoods, fiscal pressure on Palestinian civil administration, etc.

Taken together, these policies affect the ability of Palestinian communities to continue to exist.…