From Mobility Restrictions to a Modern Health Center in Baqa Al-Gharbiyyeh: Arab Women Under the Military Government in Israel, 1949–1966

Abstract: This article examines the health services provided by Israel to Palestinians during the Israeli Military Government from 1948 to 1966. It underscores the detriments to Palestinian health perpetuated by the Military Government's travel restrictions in its first years. What follows focuses on the relationships between Arab Jewish migrant nurses and Palestinian women following the establishment of a health center in Baqa al-Gharbiyyeh, in the Triangle region, in 1958. The building blocks of this article include oral interviews with Palestinian women, archival documents, and press reports, all of which illustrate the unique dynamics of health services during that period. These sources offer a rich insight into the Military Government period as they encompass multilayered relations between governing institutions and the Palestinians subordinated to them. The role of nonmilitary mediators—in this case, nurses who offered essential services to these Palestinian women—is examined critically. This article centers the silenced voices of Palestinian women living under the Military Government, illuminating the textures of their lives through the intimate register of personal experience.