This paper reflects on ongoing research carried out with and by Palestinian Citizen Social Scientists based in the West Bank before and during Israel’s war on Gaza. We argue that community-based Citizen Social Science can offer unique insights into complex, shifting local attitudes to the heightened forms of violence currently being inflicted on Palestinians by the Israeli occupation. Citizen Social Scientists’ embeddedness enables them to not only coproduce knowledge about violence in both its spectacular and more mundane forms, but also to develop affective data from experiences of vulnerability, empathy, and resilience. The paper is based on 40 interviews conducted by Palestinian Citizen Social Scientists in their own communities in late September and early October 2023. The hour-long, in-depth discussions focused on the meaning of a ‘good life’ and how to build it in a situation of ongoing settler colonial occupation. The joint analysis of these interviews is supplemented by reflections from a series of workshops in which Citizen Social Scientists considered the altered meanings of the data they had collected under the new circumstances. These give insight into how Palestinian residents view periods of relative calm vs. outright war in a long-standing situation of settler-colonial occupation. The complexities of coordinating Citizen Social Science research in Palestine after 7th October 2023 draw attention to differential psychological, economic and group dynamics alongside physical dangers. The findings highlight gaps in existing methodological literature about Citizen Science and research in violent contexts. We show that Israel’s war on Gaza has led to nuanced re-evaluations of conceptualisations of, and feelings about, quality of life under colonial occupation in the West Bank. These rework rather than replace understandings developed before the war. The paper therefore argues that literature on extreme Citizen Science and ethnographic fieldwork in situations of conflict and violence needs to take account of transdisciplinary teams that coproduce knowledge. Citizen Social Science methods thus enable a nuanced approach to studying visions of a ‘good life’ in Palestine in relation to changing levels in the Israeli occupation’s violence. Such methods demand heightened attention to risks and expanded care practices.