Tegart Forts in Palestine: Cartographic Narrative

Keywords: Palestine, Colonial Apparatus, Legal Geography, Tegart Fort
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

Since the 1910s, colonial forces in Palestine have operationalised law towards suppressing Palestinian population. The lethal process of controlling Palestinians and their land has always been met by Palestinian resistance, the suppression of which needed to be legally coded, thus morally justified. This presentation aims to spatially and cartographically narrate the history of what is known as the Tegart forts— various types of military and police units that were built across Palestine since 1938 and functioned for different apparatuses such as prisons systems, border forts, police, and intelligence units. First designed by the Irish Sir Charles Tegart, the forts came in response to the Palestinian 1936 uprising and under the British security building project of 1940-1945. Out of around 90 forts, more than 32 are currently active. The ones located in Israel mainly function as prisons, police and military units. The ones in the West Bank have been used as headquarters for Palestinian Authority and its prison system. The ones in Gaza were bombed in 2008-2011. In Israel, some of these units operated as secret prisons in different periods. By mapping their locations and highlighting spatial patterns between them, we aim to show how these forts have been legitimised by colonial laws and narrative, used for collective punishment measures such as mass detention centres, and rendered secret during “colonial extra-legal” practices. We also aims to show how they have been targets for Palestinian resistance.