The unprecedented attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas against Israel this weekend, was launched from one of the most densely populated and impoverished territories in the world.
A long series of armed conflicts have been fought in the Gaza Strip, including some of the wars that have defined the region’s recent history.
For decades, tension between Israel and Hamas – which has controlled Gaza since 2007 – has been constant, but the attack by Palestinian militants on October 7 took everyone by surprise.
Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel as dozens of fighters crossed the border and invaded Israeli communities, killing hundreds of people and taking others captive.
Israel responded with massive attacks on Gaza.
It has been described as the most serious cross-border attack Israel has faced in more than a generation and the most ambitious operation Hamas has launched from Gaza.
What is the history of this place, which human rights organizations and Palestinians themselves describe as the largest open-air prison in the world?
Land of occupations
In September 1992, then-Israeli Prime Minister Isaac Rabin, assassinated by a Jewish extremist in 1995, told an American delegation: “I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that’s not going to happen, so we have to find a solution”.
More than 30 years later, that solution does not appear.
The Gaza Strip is a territory 41 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide located between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.
It is home to around 2.3 million people and has one of the highest population densities in the world.
And it has a long history of sieges and occupations dating back 4,000 years.
It has been governed, destroyed and repopulated by various dynasties, empires and peoples, from Ancient Egypt – hundreds of years before Christ – to falling into the hands of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.
It was conquered by Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire or the Muslim general Amr ibn al-As, changing religious faith and alternating periods of prosperity and decline.
Gaza was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1917, when it came under British rule, who undertook to facilitate the formation of a unified Arab kingdom.
During World War I, the British and Turks reached an agreement for the future of the Gaza Strip and most of the Asian Arab territories that belonged to the Ottoman Empire.
But during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the winning European powers prevented the creation of the promised unified Arab kingdom and established a series of mandates that allowed them to divide up and protect the entire region.
Thus, the Gaza Strip became part of the British Mandate of Palestine, authorized by the League of Nations, which extended between 1920 and 1948.
Wars and distribution of territories
After the end of World War II, the British decided to transfer the decision on Palestine to the newly created United Nations (UN).
In 1947, the organization approved resolution 181 by which Palestine was divided as follows: 55% of the territory for the Jews, Jerusalem under international control and the rest for the Arabs (including the Gaza Strip).
This resolution, which came into force in May 1948, ended the British Mandate of Palestine and gave rise to the birth of the state of Israel.
Fighting began almost immediately, leading to the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
The conflict caused hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who ended up settling in the Gaza Strip.
With the signing of the armistice, Gaza was occupied and administered by Egypt until 1967, the year in which the Six-Day War broke out, pitting Israel against an Arab coalition formed by the United Arab Republic – the former official name of Egypt and Syria -, Jordan and Iraq.
After the victory in this conflict, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, triggering a series of violent clashes that continue to this day.
The first intifada (uprising) by Palestinians against Israelis emerged in Gaza in 1987, the same year that the Islamist group Hamas was founded. It later spread to the other occupied territories.
The 1993 Oslo Accords between Israelis and Palestinians gave rise to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and granted limited autonomy to Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank.
Israel withdrew its troops and some 7,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, after a second and much more violent intifada.
A year later, Hamas won a sweeping victory in Palestinian elections, sparking a violent power struggle in 2007 between Hamas and the Fatah party, led by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
The militant group was victorious in Gaza and has remained in power in the Strip ever since, surviving three wars and a 16-year blockade.
The blockade
After Hamas came to power, Israel and Egypt imposed a land, air and sea blockade on Gaza.
Despite calls from the United Nations and human rights groups, Israel has maintained the blockade since 2007.
The blockade has had a devastating effect on Palestinian civilians who face severe restrictions on movement.
Israel prohibits Palestinians from entering or leaving the area “except in extremely rare cases, which include urgent life-threatening medical conditions and a very short list of traders,” according to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group.
Human Rights Watch compared conditions in Gaza to “an open-air prison,” referring to the restriction of movement Israel imposes on Palestinians there.
Israel says the blockade, which gives it control of Gaza’s borders and is also enforced by Egypt, is necessary to protect Israeli citizens from Hamas.
The International Committee of the Red Cross considers the blockade illegal and says it violates the Geneva Convention, a charge Israeli officials deny. The UN, various human rights groups and jurists, citing the blockade, consider that Gaza is still under military occupation by Israel.
To try to circumvent the blockade, Hamas built a network of tunnels that it uses to bring goods into the Strip and also as an underground command center.
Israel sees these tunnels as a threat and often marks them as targets for airstrikes.
On the poverty line
By limiting imports and almost all exports, Israel’s 16-year blockade has brought Gaza’s economy to the brink of collapse, with unemployment rates above 40%, according to the World Bank.
More than 65% of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the UN, and the World Food Program considers 63% of Gaza’s population to be “food insecure.”
Half of the Palestinians living in Gaza are under 19 years old, but they have little or no prospects for socioeconomic growth and limited access to the outside world.
There is little psychological support for a generation of children who “live with the long-term psychological effects of constant exposure to violence,” according to a UN report, which describes an increase in mental health problems, including depression, among young people living in the Gaza Strip.
“The closure of Gaza prevents talented, professional people, with much to give to their society, from taking advantage of opportunities that people elsewhere take for granted,” Human Rights Watch said in a 2021 report.
“Preventing Palestinians in Gaza from moving freely within their homeland hinders life and underlines the cruel reality of apartheid and the persecution of millions of Palestinians.”
Today, with more than 2 million Palestinians living on approximately 360 km2, Gaza is “one of the most densely populated territories in the world,” according to Gisha, an Israeli non-governmental organization.
According to the UN, almost 600,000 refugees live in eight overcrowded camps in the territory.
On average in a city like London the population density is about 5,700 people per square kilometer, but in Gaza City the figure rises to more than 9,000.
In 2014, Israel declared a defense zone along the border to protect itself from rocket attacks and raids by Islamist militants.
That delimitation reduced the amount of land available in the territory for homes or farms.
Power outages are a daily occurrence in Gaza.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), most homes only have electricity for three hours a day.
The Strip gets most of its electricity from Israel, plus some input from Gaza’s only power plant and a small amount from Egypt.
Most Gazans also suffer from water shortages and live with a precarious public health system.
The ANP is responsible for health care in the Palestinian territories. And according to OCHA, the blockade by Israel and Egypt, combined with a lower investment by the ANP in health and the internal political conflict between the ANP and Hamas, are responsible.
The UN helps by managing 22 health centers. But several hospitals and clinics have been damaged or destroyed in previous clashes with Israel.
Now, in the wake of Hamas’ latest attack, conditions for civilians in Gaza and the territory’s infrastructure are expected to worsen dramatically.
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/c06r7nlr84ko, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-10-09 15:10:08
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