Calibrated survival: Israel's regulation of life and health in Gaza

This article examines Israel's long-standing restriction of life-sustaining resources in Gaza through the concept of calibrated survival: a threshold-based mode of rule in which food, water, medical care, agricultural capacity, and humanitarian access are repeatedly measured, interrupted, partially restored, and re-restricted to keep the population alive but in permanent crisis. Drawing on public statements from Israeli officials, court-released policy documents, and UN and NGO reports, the article argues that the post-October 2023 siege represents an escalation, rather than a rupture, in a longer history of governing Palestinian life through material deprivation. The analysis shows how the restriction of aid, destruction of health and food systems, obstruction of medical evacuation, and reconfiguration of humanitarian distribution have made survival in Gaza administratively contingent and chronically precarious. The article argues that calibrated survival names a specific logic at the intersection of war, policy, and public health. It constitutes the governance of collective life through the modulation of the material conditions necessary for survival, in a way designed neither to protect nor annihilate life, but to manage it at the edge of collapse, undermining international humanitarian law while deferring accountability. Gaza, the article argues, emerges as a paradigmatic site of such calibrated survival.