Palestine: In Nablus 'to survive you can’t think about tomorrow'

“Nablus is at the centre of a huge prison, surrounded by fourteen Israeli settlements and many checkpoints which are closed by the army most of the time. How much longer do we have to suffer? They’ve destroyed Gaza and are threatening to destroy us. But they can’t destroy our identity”, says one of my Nablus contacts with a sigh.

Social misery, murderous repression, fear of disappearing, a feeling of abandonment. I thought I had used up those words trying to describe the Palestine of years gone by.

But in the few days I spent in Nablus at the beginning of February 2026, I realised I’d have to use them again to convey the mounting terror. To a point where many inhabitants dread the possible end of their city’s glorious history, this splendid ancient rival of Jerusalem, Damascus and Cairo, nestled at the heart of a fertile region.

“After what they’ve done to Gaza, we can expect anything, can’t we?” says a young intellectual, who has a hard time feeding his wife and children, even though he’s a civil servant with a regular income. “There’s nothing to buy any more except Israeli stuff,” he sighs.

Shrinking the inhabitants’ living space

Israel adds commercial cynicism to economic asphyxiation. For the past two years, settler harassment and the active complicity of the army have cut Nablus off from its sustaining hinterland: the fertile land of the surrounding valleys, farmed by market gardeners, which Israel confiscates methodically. Now fresh Palestinian produce appears on the markets only in dribs and drabs. In their place are Israeli fruits and vegetables, at five times the price…boycotted by the population most of the time.

Meat has become scarce and expensive. Not an acute shortage yet, but the fear of one is added to the humiliation and the disgust. “We can’t bear this disaster any longer,” says Bakr Abdulhaq, who runs a ’fake news’ observatory, of which there are many in the region as elsewhere. He was born here and loves his city – "I’m married to Nablus”, he says with sparkling eyes – and he observes that Israel is perfecting a method of managing the occupation which consists of shrinking the inhabitants’ living space.

“I love Nablus because we fought for it. My family comes from the old city, and I was born there. But if we want to get our hope back, we must stop thinking about the future,” Moaz adds. He is employed by an NGO and he is a modest man who chooses his words carefully, trying to describe the misfortune and the confinement he experiences. At nearly forty, Moaz has only been to Jerusalem twice, just 65 km away. He has never been to the Mediterranean, which can be glimpsed in fine weather from the hills above the town, edged by the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv and Netanya.

Real estate measures to speed up the annexation

After two and a half years of genocidal war, Israel’s economy is growing again. Largely stimulated by its military and surveillance industries, the Tel Aviv stock exchange has gained 15 % since January 2026, after a 52 % rise in 2025. In the meantime the proconsul of Palestine, the fascist supremacist Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister and Minister Delegate for Defence, is advancing his pawns. Palestine is sinking into a crisis brought about by the annexation plans that are gradually taking shape while the “international community” looks on impassively.

The prospect of a second Nakba is on everyone’s mind and terrifies all the inhabitants of Nablus.

On 15 February, one week after having ratified a law which facilitates the purchase of land by settlers, Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet approved a measure proposed by Smotrich – whose home is not far from Nablus - to speed up real estate registration in the West Bank, for the first time since 1967.

The measure applies only to Zone C, which represents over 60 % of the total territory, and is meant to allow the registration as the property of the State of Israel land which is currently unregistered, thus making it available for development by the settlements. Again, the cynicism is absolute, since the Israeli government calls it “putting in order the procedures for real estate registration”.

In reality, it is a way of accelerating the creeping annexation which has been gathering pace over the past two years. A few figures are sufficient proof: between 2017 and 2022, Israel authorised the construction of a yearly average of 12,800 housing units for settlers in the occupied territories. But in 2024, the figure rose to 26,170, then to 47,390 in 2025, in other words four times as many…not counting the informal settlements which benefit from the goodwill of the authorities and the public services, water, electricity, buses and brand new highways, solely for the use of settlers and the military.

The prospect of a second Nakba, a second exodus, is on everyone’s mind and terrifies the inhabitants of Nablus. "To hold on, we mustn’t think of tomorrow,” a journalist says, repeating almost word for word what Moaz told me. He too is finding it harder and harder to feed his family.

“There’s no more money, salaries are pathetic and youth unemployment is skyrocketing,” Nasser Rahmi Arafat adds. He comes from a prosperous Nablus family that made its fortune from the region’s rich farmland, especially the olive groves. Hebron, its rival to the south, is proud of its 28 varieties of grape. Nablus until very recently boasted the quality of the tomatoes and vegetables grown in the surrounding valleys since time immemorial, thanks to careful management of water resources.

Nasser is a good-looking man, well-dressed and courteous. His blue eyes look tired, almost lifeless. We’ve known each other for a while but our reunion is tinged with sadness. He likes to boast of his city’s merits: first comes the “welcoming smile” which can melt the coldest of hearts; then comes the sweet-smelling soap, and finally the kunafa, a delicate cheese sweetmeat served warm. So many treats that contribute to the charm of this city nestling among mountains which are now strongholds for the occupation army.

For Nasser, it is no longer time for smiles and treats, but for determination and resistance. “We’re not beaten yet,” he says. “The more pressure Israel puts on us, the stronger we get.” In front of the old town’s best pastry shops there are no longer either crowds or joy when the trays of kunafa come steaming out of the ovens.

Israeli pressures on the old city

Nasser Rahmi Arafat is an architect, an activist and a specialist in the history of Nablus. He transformed the ruins of a family palace at the centre of the medieval city into a meeting-place. He keeps alive the memory of the city buried by the occupation. He has collected a number of doors from Palestinian houses in the old city destroyed over the years by the Israeli occupants. Children have painted pictures on these doors, naive and touching depictions of scenes from the occupation.

The palace is an elegant dwelling built around cool patios. It contained many reception rooms, but also a workshop making soap and cosmetics out of olive oil – beauty products for which Nablus was famous throughout the Middle East. This monument is also one of the symbols of the spirit of resistance of the old city, which was partly demolished in the April 2002 siege, during the second Intifada. Yet it remained the living soul of the city, with its souks, mosques and churches, its famous steam baths, and its many cafés and attractive hotels, today sadly deserted.

Since the beginning of the year, raids have resumed. On 10 February, the Israeli army raided the old town to arrest 22 people.

More recently it was a target of the army during the repression of the youngsters of the Lions’ Den. Between 2021 and 2022, this group, led by Abu Saleh, 25, and Abu Adam, 28, advocated the resumption of armed struggle against the settlers and the army, denouncing the servility of the Palestinian Authority. Most of its 200 activists, including its two leaders, were killed, their families’ houses in the old town blown up.

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Since the beginning of the year, the raids have begun again. On 10 February the army raided the old town and arrested 22 people. For hours, drones flew overhead with their threatening buzz. We can understand the Gazans’ exasperation having had to put up for years with that noise, meant to inspire fear

I learned about the arrests afterwards. Everything always moves very fast. We were only a stone’s throw away. Other arrests were made by the army on 12 and 13 February in the Old Askar refugee camp and the al-Masaken al-Shaabiya neighbourhood (literally “popular dwellings”) located in the eastern part of the city, and in the villages near Assira al-Shamaliya and Kafr Qalil. The message is clear: the soldiers are at home everywhere in Palestine, even in cities like Nablus supposedly under the official responsibility of the Palestinian Authority.

On this February morning, Nasser Rahmi Arafat is receiving in his office men and women who have come to ask him for help. He wants me to listen to them. Twelve people file through his office this morning with heartbreaking tales. He can’t do much to relieve this social distress and the rising poverty, direct consequences of Israel’s annexation policies in the occupied territories.

For example, tens of thousands of Palestinians who worked in Israel or the occupied territories have lost their jobs. They’ve been replaced by Filipinos, Sri Lankans or Thais. To some, Arafat gives 50 shekel banknotes (about $17), to others a phone number. “This is what we’ve come to”, he sighs. Indeed poverty is visible in the souks. Customers are few and far between, shops are empty. “Israel is starving us to death”, says one man.

Sleepless nights and fits of panic

Every day the news is bad, because in addition to the army’s raids we have those of the settlers. Since the beginning of February, the nearby villages of al-Harayeq, Bir Quza, Jabal Bir Quza, Talfit and Qusra have been attacked by settlers. In the Balata camp, just outside the city, a Fatah office building was bombed by the army on 14 February. Men are arrested every day by the army at the city’s checkpoints, which are totally closed most of the time.

Nothing seems to stand in their way, except the Israeli army and the settlers who attack, loot, wreck and kill non-stop.

The road that winds up Mount Gerizim, where Adam and Eve are supposed to have met and where Abraham was alleged to have sacrificed his son1, is currently the only way in and out of Nablus. We go through the Samaritans’ village perched on the mountain crest. They often sport beautiful traditional costumes, like in a fairy tale. Everybody shows the passing stranger their three passports, Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian, as though these magic open sesames could stop the war. The Samaritans pray in a lost paradise at the gates of hell.

What with public transport more or less at a standstill and taxis unaffordable, Nablus, cut off from the world, trembles with fear given the security conditions. The inhabitants tell us how old folk spend nights in the grip of anxiety and the children suffer panic attacks. Nothing seems to function except for the Israeli army and the settlers who attack, loot, wreck and kill non-stop.

Chair of the department of political science at the university of an-Najah – the largest in Palestine with over 25,000 students – Raed Debiy, in his early forties has a candid look and a sharp mind. He is proud of the performance of its fifteen faculties, in this “unique place of educating and training the region’s intellectuals”. However, in his view, Nablus, “once the region’s economic capital, but also that of the intifada, is growing weaker by the year.” Like most people here, he demands the end of the occupation and a new political vision in Palestine. Raed Debiy warns the Israelis: “There is no question of our leaving”.

This isn’t a slogan or a pious wish, but a political, human and historical reality, in a city which has known many occupations. These have sustained its rebellious nature and its determination to achieve independence. He says so, they all say so: the international community must stop forgetting them. What is at stake in Nablus “goes beyond Palestine”.

“When will you be back?” a friend asks me. Neither of us is able to answer, except by sharing a hug.

Translated from French by Noël Burch

This article was originally published by our partners at OrientXXI.

Jean Stern is a former contributor to Libération and La Tribune, and writes for La Chronique d'Amnesty International. His books include Les Patrons de la presse nationale, tous mauvais (La Fabrique, 2012) and Mirage gay à Tel Aviv (Libertalia, 2017).

Follow Jean on X: @Jean55

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab.