Operation Defensive Shield

On March 29, 2002 the Israeli army launched Operation Defensive Shield, the largest military offensive against Palestinian civilians since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. When the operation ended on April 21, Israel had destroyed Palestinian's economic and social infrastructure, levelled large swathes of residential areas, killed 220 people, injured hundreds more and arrested thousands. This book documents these events through a collection of witness testimonies by Palestinians and by Israeli and international peace activists. Deeply moving and courageous, these narratives offer a powerful and intimate account of the daily reality for Palestinians who endured Ariel Sharon's military strategy.

'A harrowing and tragic report on the continuing destruction of Palestine by the state of Israel. I am grateful for the witness of this book and its clarion call to act for justice in Israel and Palestine before it is too late'

Muna Hamzeh is a Palestinian-American journalist whose work on the Palestinian question has appeared in The Economist, Ha'aretz, The Christian Science Monitor, Jerusalem Report, and Middle East International, among others. Hamzeh was born in Jerusalem to a Muslim father and a Christian mother, both of whom were half-Palestinian, half-Lebanese. She lived in the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem from 1988-2000. She is currently based at the University of Texas. Professor Todd May is Class of 1941 Professor of the Humanities at Clemson University and has been active in the Palestinian rights movement since 1988. He is the author of The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Operation Defensive Shield (Pluto Press, 2003), The Political Thought of Jacques Rancière (Edinburgh University Press, 2008), and Death (Routledge, 2009).