ABSTRACT
This chapter stresses the earlier developed assumption that urbicide is not only the physical/spatial destruction of urbanity that embodies urbicide by destruction. It argues that the extreme urbicide by destruction in Nablus Old Town followed the atrocious wanton destruction of the urban as a political body and a place of identity. The chapter proposes three stages in the urbicide process, beginning with the prerequisite of politics, which paves the way for action and creates the effect of urbicide. It explains the spatial surveillance that marks a major shift in the Israeli surveillance system and its network of installation. This development started to materialize after the Oslo Agreement of 1992 and gained visibility after the onset of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000. The chapter discusses the planning laws for Palestinian cities and villages, curfew laws, invasion laws and construction laws. It investigates three major invasions and military operation in Nablus and April 2002 major operation, the "Operation Defensive Shield".
