This study examines how genocidal violence reconfigures lived space in the Gaza Strip and explores how Palestinians experience and re-signify places through everyday practices of survival, memory, and resistance. Drawing on debates on genocide, affective geographies, and settler colonialism, the study conceptualizes space as both a target of violence and a site of refusal. Between December 2024 and January 2025, 24 Palestinians living under siege in Gaza participated in a qualitative study. Using WhatsApp, participants shared photographs, videos, voice notes, and written reflections about places of personal, emotional, and symbolic significance. These multimodal materials were analysed through Reflexive Thematic Analysis informed by a psycho-cartographic approach. Four interrelated themes were identified. First, participants described fragile sanctuaries—including rooftops, cafés, courtyards, and the sea—that provided moments of psychological relief and continuity. Second, familiar environments became haunted geographies marked by trauma, bereavement, and destruction. Third, forced displacement generated overcrowding, alienation, and profound disruptions to belonging and identity. Finally, practices of care, study, and remembrance enacted sumud, transforming devastated places into sites of resistance and perseverance. The findings demonstrate that genocide operates not only through the destruction of bodies and infrastructure but also through the reconfiguration of lived space. At the same time, Palestinians actively reclaim and remake space through everyday practices of memory, dignity, care, and collective survival. The study highlights how space functions simultaneously as a target of genocidal violence and as a medium through which people sustain presence, meaning, and agency under ongoing colonial violence.
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