Israeli Bulldozers Target Palestinian Homes as Architecture Becomes a Battleground
From demolished refugee camps to gentrified urban centers, Israel's systematic erasure of Palestinian architectural identity is transforming homes, cultural institutions, and memory itself into frontlines of the war.
Watan-In a daily scene, Israeli bulldozers—with their dogs and soldiers—invade Palestinian homes, suddenly threatening buildings that had stood undisturbed for years. Some homes are demolished without warning, giving residents no time to even save a plastic chair. In an instant, a home’s decorations turn to rubble, and its arched windows become meaningless stones.
Until just yesterday, and for over 100 consecutive days, the massacres of homes continued. Israeli forces demolished over 40 homes in the Tulkarm refugee camp in the northern West Bank, affecting around 100 residential units.
At least ten houses were burned, more than 300 commercial stores were destroyed, and hundreds of homes suffered partial damage. Streets were torn apart, and infrastructure was completely devastated. This pattern extended to the Jenin and Nour Shams camps, displacing over 90% of residents to unknown areas.
Targeting Culture: Israel Destroys Palestinian Institutions and Architecture
In parallel, many cultural centers, community institutions, and mosques—such as Al-Jabariyat Mosque, Khalid bin Al-Walid Mosque, and Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq Mosque in Jenin—were attacked and damaged. Some institutions were closed or threatened with raids, including the “Laji” Foundation and the Aida Youth Center, whose director was previously arrested. The “Ibda’a” Center in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem was ordered shut since March 2025, after its director—an active cultural and social figure—was released from detention.
The “Freedom Theater” in Jenin camp was also stormed, its contents destroyed, and parts of it demolished and converted into an Israeli military post. This theater had been the last remaining cultural space for children in the camp during the recent military campaign, which has lasted over 100 days. In response, its members now perform for displaced children in the alleyways and streets of the villages hosting the refugees.
Architecture in Palestine has long been more than just walls and stone. It reflects Palestinian identity and collective memory, encapsulating their stories, joys, and sorrows. As life evolved, so did Palestinian homes—shaped by the local environment, social structures, and political pressures. Today, that very architecture has become a symbolic and material battlefield between Israeli settler colonialism and the capitalist expansion that has overtaken Palestine—not only occupying land but attempting to distort and dismantle Palestinian visual and architectural identity.
Israel has worked to dismantle Palestinian architecture through various means: systematic home demolitions and land seizures, rigid zoning regimes (Area A, B, and C), and restrictions on building permits and resources. These policies have led to a severe housing crisis, the loss of public facilities and institutions, and the conversion of many spaces into shelters—especially in surrounding villages.
The Birth of Informal Architecture
Since the 1948 Nakba, settler colonialism has played a central role in dismantling the traditional Palestinian architectural landscape. Entire villages were erased, and settlements—built in foreign styles—rose atop their ruins, ignoring the natural and cultural contexts that had shaped those villages. Through land confiscations, home demolitions, and forced urban designs within Palestinian towns and cities, the occupation spurred the birth of refugee camps: originally temporary shelters that quickly became permanent. A similar scenario unfolded after the 1967 Naksa, as new waves of displacement erased what remained of the architectural heritage in overcrowded and visually chaotic camps.
These camps initially began as tent cities. Over time, they developed into makeshift homes of zinc and cement, often built without urban planning. Despite their fragility, these structures gained powerful symbolic significance, becoming living testimony to the enduring Nakba and the reality of forced exile. Over decades, the camps developed their own architectural identity—blending nostalgia for lost villages with the harsh realities of displacement and loss.
Urban Transformations
Palestinian cities have undergone dramatic transformations in both urban fabric and social temperament, especially in Ramallah, which has emerged—since the Oslo Accords—as a kind of “administrative capital” for the Palestinian Authority. This shift triggered an unprecedented building boom: high-rises, luxury complexes, and global-style designs now dominate a city once known as a rural summer retreat. However, these modern buildings are often alien to the Palestinian context, creating visual and psychological rifts between Ramallah and other cities like Bethlehem, Nablus, and Gaza, which—despite marginalization—retain elements of traditional architecture.
In Ramallah, private capital, foreign institutions, and a “state-building” atmosphere imposed an urban model with colonial undertones—detached from rural and old-town aesthetics. Meanwhile, other Palestinian cities have preserved aspects of traditional construction, especially in their historic centers, despite repeated legal violations that threaten this architectural legacy.
Architecture does more than shape visual landscapes; it molds collective consciousness and emotional resonance. When places lose harmony with the memories and culture of their people, they evoke feelings of estrangement and internal uprooting. In villages overtaken by chaotic construction, and cities forced into alien building styles, an emotional disconnect emerges. Refugee camps, too, with their suffocating density and deliberate architectural neglect, continue to reflect a constant sense of loss, displacement, and enclosure.
