Welcome to +972’s Sunday Recap!

After decades consolidating their control over Area C, Israeli settlers are expanding into Areas B and A — nominally under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction — and displacing communities, Oren Ziv and Ariel Caine revealed in a joint investigation with Local Call and The Nation.

Guevara Bader argued that the Iron Dome is intercepting any chance of a normal future: Israel’s missile defense systems have radically reduced the cost of going to war — and a society that does not fear war is doomed to live with it forever (originally published on Local Call).

Israel locked down its prisons at the start of the Iran war, barring almost all lawyer visits. Janan Abdu represents a Palestinian woman inside Damon Prison near Haifa and described how she can no longer reach her, leaving her client without a voice beyond her cell.

Ben Reiff wrote about the Paraguay Scheme — Israel’s secret plan to expel 60,000 Palestinians soon after occupying the Gaza Strip in 1967, which was uncovered in a new podcast series. Almost six decades later, Israel’s methods and objectives remain eerily similar.

For decades, Israeli and international volunteers have put their bodies on the line to prevent the expulsion of Palestinian communities, a form of activism known as protective presence. But if they no longer deter violent settlers and soldiers, Charlotte Ritz-Jack asked, can they still make a difference?

And on the latest episode of the +972 Podcast, Jennifer Cutler spoke to longtime anti-militarist activist Sahar Vardi about the human and political costs of Israel’s flourishing arms industry, and the deep societal shifts demilitarization would require.  

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