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Paper Short Abstract:

The war in Gaza enters Israeli and Palestinian spaces through the senses. Here we will discuss the role of the senses in the (re)construction of feelings of security and fear in civilian spaces in Israel/Palestine, which are influenced and formed by what happens on the battlefield nearby.

Paper Abstract:

At the time of this writing, the war in Israel/Palestine has been raging for over 3 months. The war, its violence, but also its sights, smells, and sounds are everywhere. In the form of death and horror, but also through more ‘daily’ experiences, such as the sounds of the air raid sirens and the sight of weaponry everywhere. The war in Gaza enters Israeli and Palestinian spaces through the senses.

Attacking the senses has been a mode of warfare that goes back many years. The Israeli military is known to use teargas, Skunk with its terrible smell, and the ‘Shofar’ with its high-pitched sound as deterrence of protestors in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, for example. However, smell and sounds are also sources of conflict and security in more civilian settings, where they play a role in the making of the (enemy) other. During times of emergency, this is intensified and feelings of (in)security and fear are (re)constructed by, for example, the sounds of sirens warnings that rockets are on their way, but also around the sight of the huge amount of weapons that have been flooded into the Israeli civil space in the last months. For some, feelings of security increase with this sight, for many others the opposite is true.

In this paper, we will discuss the role of the senses in the (re)construction of feelings of security and fear in civilian spaces in Israel/Palestine, which are influenced and formed by what happens on the battlefield nearby.