In recent weeks, Palestinian grassroots mobilization has gathered remarkable momentum, particularly within the 1948 territories and the occupied West Bank. This surge reflects a growing effort to reconnect with a reinvigorated wave of global solidarity that has persisted, and even expanded, despite severe crackdowns on pro-Palestinian movements across the United States and much of Europe.

All signs suggest that this momentum will continue to grow, potentially building toward a broader popular uprising, one capable of pushing back against Israel’s brutal policies toward Palestinians across the land.

The harrowing images from Gaza — emaciated children, families repeatedly driven from their homes, people being shot dead while waiting for food — have become impossible for Israel’s allies to ignore or explain away. These images have begun to haunt Western governments long complicit in Israel’s genocidal campaign, shaming them in the court of public opinion and exposing the moral bankruptcy of their silence.

Under mounting pressure from their own citizens, several Western states have recently sharpened their criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza: the unrelenting pace of killings, the deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid, the apparent absence of any plan to end the war.

Perhaps the most high-profile rebukes have come in the form of formal recognition (or threats of recognition) of the State of Palestine by a handful of Western heads of state, most notably France’s Emmanuel Macron. Yet such declarations, however dramatic on paper, remain largely symbolic. The “two-state solution” they gesture toward is widely seen as both illusory and inadequate — preserving Israel’s colonial apartheid regime and denying millions of Palestinian refugees their right of return.

Even if these pronouncements are unlikely to have substantial practical implications, however, they are nevertheless an important gesture of support, and a much needed morale boost to the popular movement that opens the door to a new phase of thinking and action.

Palestinians and solidarity activists protest the ongoing starvation and genocide in Gaza, in Jaffa, central Israel, July 25, 2025. (Oren Ziv/Activestills)

A changing landscape

Palestinian protesters and their allies are closely tracking shifts in the region’s geopolitical balance of power. With Washington’s unwavering backing, Israel now acts with near-total impunity across the territory of the so-called Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance.” Yet despite the heavy blows Iran has suffered in its recent 12-day war with Israel, it remains far from defeated. Both sides are racing to expand their military buildup in preparation for an even bloodier and more destructive phase of the conflict.

But for now, with the balance of power tilted heavily toward Israel, many Palestinian activists are turning inward — toward grassroots popular resistance — in the absence of any external military force capable of reining in Israeli aggression. And there are reasons to believe this strategy can work.

Despite its military dominance, Israel’s global standing — even among Jews worldwide — is more fragile than ever. In June, as chair of the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), I attended and spoke at an extraordinary event: the “First Jewish Anti-Zionist Conference,” held at the birthplace of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of the Zionist movement. The organizers brought together some 500 Jewish intellectuals and activists from around the world, aiming to unite the growing number of anti-Zionist Jews and integrate them into the broader global progressive movement against Israel’s genocidal regime.

With the horrors it is inflicting on Gaza and the escalating state-sanctioned violence in the West Bank, Israel can no longer polish its image abroad, nor can its propaganda conceal its crimes. Some argue that Israel still does not grasp the scale of the reputational and strategic damage it is inflicting on itself — damage that may soon prove irreversible. In this context, a strategy of sustained, globally connected popular resistance is no longer just viable; it is a historical necessity.

In recent years, we’ve witnessed several attempts to advance this path — most notably the series of protests at the Gaza border in 2018-2019 collectively known as the “Great March of Return.” From the very outset, these marches were met with bloody repression from the Israeli army, aimed at suppressing their powerful resonance with global public opinion.

Israeli forces face Palestinian protesters during the “Great March of Return,” at the Israeil-Gaza border, November 1, 2019. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Yet the momentum of those protests never reached the West Bank. This was due in part to the fragile political climate there, and to the absence of any coherent vision for popular resistance within the Palestinian Authority. Bound by its security coordination with Israel, the PA has actively undermined independent grassroots mobilization, working in close cooperation with the colonizer to prevent it from taking root.

In May 2021, a broad popular uprising swept across all of Palestine, from the river to the sea. For a brief moment, it seemed poised to evolve into a sustained, nationwide campaign of civilian resistance. But the introduction of a military dimension — in the form of rocket fire from Hamas — disrupted the momentum and blunted the potential of that civilian-led path. The opportunity was there despite Israel’s crackdown; it simply did not fully materialize.

These missed opportunities have strengthened the conviction among many that grassroots resistance — legal, cultural, and artistic — remains among the most promising means of challenging Israeli domination, perhaps even more so than military force. Even Israeli analysts now concede that the events of October 7 and the subsequent war have shaken the prestige of the Israeli military; a prestige that, despite decades of criminal actions, had remained remarkably intact.

Meanwhile, the struggle continues abroad: in international courts, in cultural arenas, in the streets, and on university campuses. As Israel’s crimes become harder to conceal, new waves of outrage and solidarity are reshaping media coverage and political debate. It is on these battlefields, where violations of international law become liabilities for the perpetrators, that the edifice of apartheid and genocide may ultimately begin to collapse.

A spark from Sakhnin

A recent development signals a potential turning point in mobilization among Palestinian citizens of Israel. The northern city of Sakhnin saw thousands converge for a massive protest against the genocide in Gaza, while in Jaffa, several leading figures, including Palestinian MKs and members of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel launched a three-day hunger strike. Particularly striking was the substantial presence of anti-occupation Israeli Jews, an encouraging sign for the future of genuine co-resistance.

Palestinian citizens of Israel protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, in the northern city of Sakhnin, July 25, 2025. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)

From Sakhnin, protests spread quickly to other Palestinian towns inside the 1948 territories — across the Galilee, the Triangle, the Naqab, and the coastal region. And now, crucially, echoes of this movement are beginning to resonate in the West Bank, even as Palestinians there remain caught between the dual repression of Israeli occupation forces and their PA collaborators.

Inspired by the hunger strike of Palestinian leaders inside Israel, activists and national figures in the West Bank have begun their own strike — not only in solidarity with Gaza, but also as a means of political reawakening. Hunger strikers in Ramallah, whom I joined for a day, spoke candidly about drawing direct inspiration from the mobilization of Palestinian citizens of Israel and their leadership.

Are we witnessing the first steps toward a unified popular movement capable of forcing real change? It is still too early to say. But one thing is clear: Palestinians can no longer afford the paralysis of political stagnation. What happens next will depend on internal dynamics, and on whether movement leaders can think strategically enough to build the engine, structure, and framework capable of driving this historic transformation forward.

A version of this article was first published in Arabic on Arab48

Awad Abdelfattah is the coordinator of the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC) and the former secretary general of the Balad party.

+972 Magazine is an independent, online, nonprofit magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists. Founded in 2010, our mission is to provide in-depth reporting, analysis, and opinions from the ground in Israel-Palestine. The name of the site is derived from the telephone country code that can be used to dial throughout Israel-Palestine.

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