This paper explores Israel’s securitization of COVID-19 in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) from the onset of the pandemic to the present through its robust and expansive security state. The paper considers the securitization theoretical framework as developed by the Copenhagen school to investigate how an epidemiological situation has been used for political purposes (Buzan et al., 1998; Williams, 2003; McDonald, 2008; Olesker, 2014; Mabon, 2018; Kirck & McDonald, 2021). Using primary and secondary sources, the paper addresses the following key research questions: (1) What is the historical context for the state’s securitization of the pandemic; (2) How has COVID-19 been securitized in the OPT; and (3) What tools have been used in this securitization? The paper begins with an overview of the weak and unstable pre-pandemic healthcare system in the OPT that has existed under Israeli military occupation since 1967. The paper then investigates how the state has securitized the pandemic, thereby advancing militarism and surveillance especially through the use of technological tools. I argue that while the COVID-19 pandemic has been securitized by Israel and used by the state to further expand its control over Palestinians in the OPT, the state already had mechanisms in place that made it easy to deploy to a new (public health) security threat. I then illustrate how places like the OPT pose a challenge for Western-originated securitization theory as even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Palestinians’ everyday life had been securitized. I conclude by suggesting that the OPT and other similar places experiencing sustained state (e.g. military, border control, etc.) and non-state (e.g. Israeli settlers) violence can shed light on how to better understand the complexity of securitization, particularly outside Western liberal democracies that exist in our contemporary world.