^Although Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the United Nations, international human rights organizations and many legal scholars regard the Gaza Strip to still be under military occupation by Israel,[2] as Israel still maintains direct control over Gaza's air and maritime space, six of Gaza's seven land crossings, a no-go buffer zone within the territory, and the Palestinian population registry. However, Israel and other legal scholars dispute this.[3]
Although in 2005 Israel unilaterally withdrew its military forces from Gaza and dismantled its settlements there, the same year Israel implemented a temporary blockade of Gaza; the blockade became indefinite after Gaza was taken by Hamas due to that group's anti-Israeli stance. Egypt supports the blockade; its border with Gaza has been subverted by smuggling tunnels. The land, sea, and air blockade prevents people and goods from freely entering or leaving the territory, resulting in a $17 million loss in exports and leading to it often being called an "open-air prison".[11][12] The United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and many human-rights organizations regard the blockade (causing shortages of water, electricity, and medicine) as constituting continued military occupation, which Israel disputes.[13] The UN, as well as at least 19 human-rights organizations, have urged Israel to lift the blockade.[14]
The Gaza Strip is 41 kilometres (25 miles) long, from 6 to 12 km (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide, and has a total area of 365 km2 (141 sq mi).[15][16] With around 2 million Palestinians[17] on approximately 365 km2 (141 sq mi) of land, Gaza has a high population density (comparable to that of Hong Kong).[18][19] The majority of Palestinians in Gaza, which contains eight refugee camps, are descendants of refugees who fled or were expelled from the area that became Israel after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.[20] Sunni Muslims make up most of Gaza's population, with a Palestinian Christian minority. Gaza has an annual population growth rate of 1.99% (2023 est.), the 39th-highest in the world.[21] Gaza's unemployment rate is among the highest in the world, with an overall unemployment rate of 46% and a youth unemployment rate of ~70%, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.[22][23]
On 22 September 1948 (near the end of the Arab–Israeli War), in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza City, the Arab League proclaimed the All-Palestine Government, partly to limit Transjordan's influence over Palestine. The All-Palestine Protectorate was quickly recognized by six of the Arab League's then-seven members (excluding Transjordan): Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.[29] It was not recognized by any other country.[citation needed]
After the cessation of hostilities, the Israel–Egypt Armistice Agreement of 24 February 1949 established the line of separation between Egyptian and Israeli forces, as well as the modern boundary between Gaza and Israel, which both signatories declared not to be an international border. The southern border with Egypt was unchanged.[24]
Palestinians living in Gaza or Egypt were issued All-Palestine passports. Egypt did not offer them citizenship. From the end of 1949, they received aid directly from UNRWA. During the Suez Crisis (1956), Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula were occupied by Israeli troops, who withdrew under international pressure. The All-Palestine government was accused of being little more than a façade for Egyptian control, with negligible independent funding or influence. It subsequently moved to Cairo and dissolved in 1959 by decree of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser.[citation needed]
1956–1957: Israeli occupation
During the 1956 Suez Crisis (Second Arab–Israeli war), Israel invaded the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. On 3 November, the IDF attacked Egyptian and Palestinian forces at Khan Yunis.[30] The city of Khan Younis resisted being captured, and Israel responded with a heavy bombing campaign that inflicted heavy civilian casualties.[31] After a fierce battle, the Israeli 37th Armored Brigade's Sherman tanks broke through the heavily fortified lines outside of Khan Yunis held by the 86th Palestinian Brigade.[32]
After some street-fighting with Egyptian soldiers and Palestinian fedayeen, Khan Yunis fell to the Israelis.[32] Upon capturing Khan Yunis, the IDF committed a massacre, known as the Khan Yunis massacre.[33] Israeli troops started executing unarmed Palestinians, mostly civilians; in one instance men were lined up against walls in central square and executed with machine guns.[34] The claims of a massacre were reported to the United Nations General Assembly on 15 December 1956 by the Director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, Henry Labouisse, who reported from "trustworthy sources" that 275 people were killed in the massacre of which 140 were refugees and 135 local residents.[35][36]
On 12 November, days after the hostilities had ended, Israel killed 111 people in the Rafah refugee camp during Israeli operations, in an event known as the Rafah massacre, provoking international criticism.[37][38]
Israel ended the occupation in March 1957, amid international pressure. During the 4-month Israeli occupation, 900–1,231 people were killed.[39] According to French historian Jean-Pierre Filiu, 1% of the population of Gaza was killed, wounded, imprisoned or tortured during the occupation.[39]
After the dissolution of the All-Palestine Government in 1959, under the excuse of pan-Arabism, Egypt continued to occupy the Gaza Strip until 1967. Egypt never annexed the Gaza Strip, but instead treated it as a controlled territory and administered it through a military governor.[40] The influx of over 200,000 refugees from former Mandatory Palestine, roughly a quarter of those who fled or were expelled from their homes during, and in the aftermath of, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War into Gaza[41] resulted in a dramatic decrease in the standard of living. Because the Egyptian government restricted movement to and from the Gaza Strip, its inhabitants could not look elsewhere for gainful employment.[42]
In June 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel Defense Forces captured the Gaza Strip. Under the then head of Israel's Southern Command Ariel Sharon, dozens of Palestinians, suspected of being members of the resistance, were executed without trial. [43]
According to Tom Segev, moving the Palestinians out of the country had been a persistent element of Zionist thinking from early times.[44] In December 1967, during a meeting at which the Security Cabinetbrainstormed about what to do with the Arab population of the newly occupied territories, one of the suggestions Prime Minister Levi Eshkol proffered regarding Gaza was that the people might leave if Israel restricted their access to water supplies.[45][46] A number of measures, including financial incentives, were taken shortly afterwards to begin to encourage Gazans to emigrate elsewhere.[44][47] Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, "various international agencies struggled to respond" and American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera), a 501(c)(3), was founded to help the victims of the conflict by providing immediate emergency relief.[48]
Subsequent to this military victory, Israel created the first Israeli settlement bloc in the Strip, Gush Katif, in the southwest corner near Rafah and the Egyptian border on a spot where a small kibbutz had previously existed for 18 months between 1946 and 1948.[note 1] In total, between 1967 and 2005, Israel established 21 settlements in Gaza, comprising 20% of the total territory.
The economic growth rate from 1967 to 1982 averaged roughly 9.7 percent per annum, due in good part to expanded income from work opportunities inside Israel, which had a major utility for the latter by supplying the country with a large unskilled and semi-skilled workforce. Gaza's agricultural sector was adversely affected as one-third of the Strip was appropriated by Israel, competition for scarce water resources stiffened, and the lucrative cultivation of citrus declined with the advent of Israeli policies, such as prohibitions on planting new trees and taxation that gave breaks to Israeli producers, factors which militated against growth. Gaza's direct exports of these products to Western markets, as opposed to Arab markets, was prohibited except through Israeli marketing vehicles, in order to assist Israeli citrus exports to the same markets. The overall result was that large numbers of farmers were forced out of the agricultural sector. Israel placed quotas on all goods exported from Gaza, while abolishing restrictions on the flow of Israeli goods into the Strip. Sara Roy characterised the pattern as one of structural de-development.[50]
On 26 March 1979, Israel and Egypt signed the Egypt–Israel peace treaty.[51] Among other things, the treaty provided for the withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had captured during the Six-Day War. The Egyptians agreed to keep the Sinai Peninsula demilitarized. The final status of the Gaza Strip, and other relations between Israel and Palestinians, was not dealt with in the treaty. Egypt renounced all territorial claims to territory north of the international border. The Gaza Strip remained under Israeli military administration. The Israeli military became responsible for the maintenance of civil facilities and services.
After the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty, a 100-meter-wide buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt known as the Philadelphi Route was established. The international border along the Philadelphi corridor between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is 11 km (6.8 mi) long.
The First Intifada was a sustained series of protests and violent riots carried out by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupiedPalestinian territories and Israel.[52] It was motivated by collective Palestinian frustration over Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as it approached a twenty-year mark, having begun after Israel's victory in the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.[53] The uprising lasted from December 1987 until the Madrid Conference of 1991, though some date its conclusion to 1993, with the signing of the Oslo Accords.
The intifada began on 9 December 1987,[54] in the Jabaliarefugee camp of the Gaza Strip after an Israeli army truck collided with a civilian car, killing four Palestinian workers.[55] Palestinians charged that the collision was a deliberate response for the killing of an Israeli in Gaza days earlier.[56] Israel denied that the crash, which came at time of heightened tensions, was intentional or coordinated.[57] The Palestinian response was characterized by protests, civil disobedience, and violence.[58][59] There was graffiti, barricading,[60][61] and widespread throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails at the IDF and its infrastructure within the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These contrasted with civil efforts including general strikes, boycotts of Israeli Civil Administration institutions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, an economic boycott consisting of refusal to work in Israeli settlements on Israeli products, refusal to pay taxes, and refusal to drive Palestinian cars with Israeli licenses.[62][63][64][65]
1994: Gaza under Palestinian Authority
In May 1994, following the Palestinian-Israeli agreements known as the Oslo Accords, a phased transfer of governmental authority to the Palestinians took place. Much of the Strip came under Palestinian control, except for the settlement blocs and military areas. The Israeli forces left Gaza City and other urban areas, leaving the new Palestinian Authority to administer and police those areas. The Palestinian Authority, led by Yasser Arafat, chose Gaza City as its first provincial headquarters. In September 1995, Israel and the PLO signed a second peace agreement, extending the Palestinian Authority to most West Bank towns.
Between 1994 and 1996, Israel built the Israeli Gaza Strip barrier to improve security in Israel. The barrier was largely torn down by Palestinians at the beginning of the Second Intifada in September 2000.[66]
The image of Faris Odeh throwing a stone at an Israeli tank near the Gaza Strip during the Second Intifada assumed an iconic status among Palestinians as a symbol of opposition to the Israeli occupation; the boy was shot by the Israeli army 10 days later for his stone throwing.[67][68]
The Second Intifada was a major Palestinian uprising in the Israeli-occupiedPalestinian territories and Israel. The general triggers for the unrest are speculated to have been centred on the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit, which was expected to reach a final agreement on the Israeli–Palestinian peace process in July 2000.[69] Outbreaks of violence began in September 2000, after Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli opposition leader, made a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa compound on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem;[69] the visit itself was peaceful, but, as anticipated, sparked protests and riots that Israeli police put down with rubber bullets and tear gas.[70] The Second Intifada also marked the beginning of rocket attacks and bombings of Israeli border localities by Palestinian guerrillas from the Gaza Strip, especially by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad movements.
High numbers of casualties were caused among civilians as well as combatants. Israeli forces engaged in gunfire, targeted killings, and tank and aerial attacks, while Palestinians engaged in suicide bombings, gunfire, stone-throwing, and rocket attacks.[71][72] Palestinian suicide bombings were a prominent feature of the fighting and mainly targeted Israeli civilians, contrasting with the relatively less violent nature of the First Intifada.[73][74][75][76][77] With a combined casualty figure for combatants and civilians, the violence is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis, as well as 64 foreigners.[78]
Between December 2000 and June 2001, the barrier between Gaza and Israel was reconstructed. A barrier on the Gaza Strip-Egypt border was constructed starting in 2004.[79] The main crossing points are the northern Erez Crossing into Israel and the southern Rafah Crossing into Egypt. The eastern Karni Crossing used for cargo, closed down in 2011.[80] Israel controls the Gaza Strip's northern borders, as well as its territorial waters and airspace. Egypt controls Gaza Strip's southern border, under an agreement between it and Israel.[81] Neither Israel or Egypt permits free travel from Gaza as both borders are heavily militarily fortified. "Egypt maintains a strict blockade on Gaza in order to isolate Hamas from Islamist insurgents in the Sinai."[82]
In February 2005, the Knesset approved a unilateral disengagement plan and began removing Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005. All Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the joint Israeli-Palestinian Erez Industrial Zone were dismantled, and 9,000 Israelis, most living in Gush Katif, were forcibly evicted.
On 12 September 2005, the Israeli cabinet formally declared an end to Israeli military occupation of the Gaza Strip.
"The Oslo Agreements gave Israel full control over Gaza's airspace, but established that the Palestinians could build an airport in the area" and the disengagement plan states that: "Israel will hold sole control of Gaza airspace and will continue to carry out military activity in the waters of the Gaza Strip." "Therefore, Israel continues to maintain exclusive control of Gaza's airspace and the territorial waters, just as it has since it occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967."[83]Human Rights Watch has advised the UN Human Rights Council that it (and others) consider Israel to be the occupying power of the Gaza Strip because Israel controls Gaza Strip's airspace, territorial waters and controls the movement of people or goods in or out of Gaza by air or sea.[84][85][86] The European Union considers Gaza to be occupied.[87]
Israel also withdrew from the Philadelphi Route, a narrow strip of land adjacent to the border with Egypt, after Egypt agreed to secure its side of the border. Under the Oslo Accords, the Philadelphi Route was to remain under Israeli control to prevent the smuggling of weapons and people across the Egyptian border, but Egypt (under EU supervision) committed itself to patrolling the area and preventing such incidents. With the Agreement on Movement and Access, known as the Rafah Agreement in the same year Israel ended its presence in the Philadelphi Route and transferred responsibility for security arrangements to Egypt and the PA under the supervision of the EU.[88]
In November 2005, an "Agreement on Movement and Access" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority was brokered by then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to improve Palestinian freedom of movement and economic activity in the Gaza Strip. Under its terms, the Rafah crossing with Egypt was to be reopened, with transits monitored by the Palestinian National Authority and the European Union. Only people with Palestinian ID, or foreign nationals, by exception, in certain categories, subject to Israeli oversight, were permitted to cross in and out. All goods, vehicles and trucks to and from Egypt passed through the Kerem Shalom Crossing, under full Israeli supervision.[89] Goods were also permitted transit at the Karni crossing in the north.
After the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, the Oslo Accords give the Palestinian Authority administrative authority in the Gaza Strip. The Rafah Border Crossing has been supervised by EU Border Assistance Mission Rafah under an agreement finalized in November 2005.[90] The Oslo Accord permits Israel to control the airspace and sea space, though the Accords also stipulated the Palestinians could have their own airport inside the Strip, which Israel has since then prevented from happening.[91]
During Israel’s pullout, Palestinians demolished infrastructure and unused buildings for scrap material. Smugglers, militant groups, and entrepreneurs dug tunnels into Egypt, creating a booming "tunnel economy". Israel's disengagement also resulted in loss of the settlement factories, workshops, and greenhouses where Gazans were employed.[92] 3,600 workers were employed at the greenhouses, and the "overwhelming majority" of them were Palestinians.[93]
Despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza,[13] the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators consider the territory to be still occupied by Israel, supported by additional restrictions placed on Gaza by Egypt.[94] Israel maintains direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, as well as six of Gaza's seven land crossings. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military and maintains a no-go buffer zone within the Gaza territory. Gaza is dependent on Israel for water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities.[13] The extensive Israeli buffer zone within the Strip renders much land off-limits to Gaza's inhabitants.[95] The system of control imposed by Israel was described in the fall 2012 edition of International Security as an "indirect occupation".[96]
In the Palestinian parliamentary elections held on 25 January 2006, Hamas won a plurality of 42.9% of the total vote and 74 out of 132 total seats (56%).[97][98] When Hamas assumed power the next month, Israel, the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations demanded that Hamas accept all previous agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist, and renounce violence; when Hamas refused,[99] they cut off direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, although some aid money was redirected to humanitarian organizations not affiliated with the government.[100] The resulting political disorder and economic stagnation led to many Palestinians emigrating from the Gaza Strip.[101]
In January 2007, fighting erupted between Hamas and Fatah. The deadliest clashes occurred in the northern Gaza Strip, where General Muhammed Gharib, a senior commander of the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Force, died when a rocket hit his home.
On 30 January 2007, a truce was negotiated between Fatah and Hamas.[102] After a few days, new fighting broke out. On 1 February, Hamas killed 6 people in an ambush on a Gaza convoy which delivered equipment for Abbas' Palestinian Presidential Guard, according to diplomats, meant to counter smuggling of more powerful weapons into Gaza by Hamas for its fast-growing "Executive Force". According to Hamas, the deliveries to the Presidential Guard were intended to instigate sedition against Hamas, while withholding money and assistance from the Palestinian people.[103] Fatah fighters stormed a Hamas-affiliated university in the Gaza Strip. Officers from Abbas' presidential guard battled Hamas gunmen guarding the Hamas-led Interior Ministry.[104]
In May 2007, new fighting broke out between the factions.[105] Interior Minister Hani Qawasmi, who had been considered a moderate civil servant acceptable to both factions, resigned due to what he termed harmful behavior by both sides.[106]
Fighting spread in the Gaza Strip, with both factions attacking vehicles and facilities of the other side. Following a breakdown in an Egyptian-brokered truce, Israel launched an air strike which destroyed a building used by Hamas. Ongoing violence prompted fear that it could bring the end of the Fatah-Hamas coalition government, and possibly the end of the Palestinian authority.[107]
Hamas spokesman Moussa Abu Marzouk blamed the conflict between Hamas and Fatah on Israel, stating that the constant pressure of economic sanctions resulted in the "real explosion."[108] Associated Press reporter Ibrahim Barzak wrote an eyewitness account stating: "Today I have seen people shot before my eyes, I heard the screams of terrified women and children in a burning building, and I argued with gunmen who wanted to take over my home. I have seen a lot in my years as a journalist in Gaza, but this is the worst it's been."
From 2006 to 2007 more than 600 Palestinians were killed in fighting between Hamas and Fatah.[109] 349 Palestinians were killed in fighting between factions in 2007. 160 Palestinians killed each other in June alone.[110]
In late June 2008, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan declared the West Bank-based cabinet formed by Abbas as "the sole legitimate Palestinian government". Egypt moved its embassy from Gaza to the West Bank.[113]Saudi Arabia and Egypt supported reconciliation and a new unity government and pressed Abbas to start talks with Hamas. Abbas had always conditioned this on Hamas returning control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority.
After the takeover, Israel and Egypt closed their border crossings with Gaza. Palestinian sources reported that European Union monitors fled the Rafah Border Crossing, on the Gaza–Egypt border for fear of being kidnapped or harmed.[114] Arab foreign ministers and Palestinian officials presented a united front against control of the border by Hamas.[115]
Meanwhile, Israeli and Egyptian security reports said that Hamas continued smuggling in large quantities of explosives and arms from Egypt through tunnels. Egyptian security forces uncovered 60 tunnels in 2007.[116]
Egyptian border barrier breach
A view of Gaza in January 2009
On 23 January 2008, after months of preparation during which the steel reinforcement of the border barrier was weakened,[117]Hamas destroyed several parts of the wall dividing Gaza and Egypt in the town of Rafah. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans crossed the border into Egypt seeking food and supplies. Due to the crisis, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered his troops to allow the Palestinians in but to verify that they did not bring weapons back across the border.[118] Egypt arrested and later released several armed Hamas militants in the Sinai who presumably wanted to infiltrate into Israel. At the same time, Israel increased its state of alert along the length of the Israel-Egypt Sinai border, and warned its citizens to leave Sinai "without delay."
The EU Border Monitors initially monitored the border because Hamas guaranteed their safety, but they later fled. The Palestinian Authority demanded that Egypt deal only with the Authority in negotiations relating to borders. Israel eased restrictions on the delivery of goods and medical supplies but curtailed electricity by 5% in one of its ten lines.[119] The Rafah crossing remained closed into mid-February.[120]
In February 2008, 2008 Israel-Gaza conflict intensified, with rockets launched at Israeli cities. Aggression by Hamas led to Israeli military action on 1 March 2008, resulting in over 110 Palestinians being killed according to BBC News, as well as 2 Israeli soldiers. Israeli human rights group B'Tselem estimated that 45 of those killed were not involved in hostilities, and 15 were minors.[121]
After a round of tit-for-tat arrests between Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the Hilles clan from Gaza were relocated to Jericho on 4 August 2008.[122] Retiring Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on 11 November 2008, "The question is not whether there will be a confrontation, but when it will take place, under what circumstances, and who will control these circumstances, who will dictate them, and who will know to exploit the time from the beginning of the ceasefire until the moment of confrontation in the best possible way." On 14 November 2008, Israel blockaded its border with Gaza after a five-month ceasefire broke down.[123] In 2013 Israel and Qatar brought Gaza's lone power plant back to life for the first time in seven weeks, bringing relief to the Palestinian coastal enclave where a lack of cheap fuel has contributed to the overflow of raw sewage, 21-hour blackouts and flooding after a ferocious winter storm. "Palestinian officials said that a $10 million grant from Qatar was covering the cost of two weeks' worth of industrial diesel that started entering Gaza by truckload from Israel."[124]
On 25 November 2008, Israel closed its cargo crossing with Gaza after Qassam rockets were fired into its territory.[125] On 28 November, after a 24-hour period of quiet, the IDF facilitated the transfer of over thirty truckloads of food, basic supplies and medicine into Gaza and transferred fuel to the area's main power plant.[126]
On 27 December 2008,[127] Israeli F-16 fighters launched a series of air strikes against targets in Gaza following the breakdown of a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas.[128] Israel began a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip on 3 January 2009.[129] Various sites that Israel claimed were being used as weapons depots were struck from the air : police stations, schools, hospitals, UN warehouses, mosques, various Hamas government buildings and other buildings.[130]
Israel said that the attack was a response to Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel, which totaled over 3,000 in 2008, and which intensified during the few weeks preceding the operation. Israel advised people near military targets to leave before the attacks. Israeli defense sources said that Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the IDF to prepare for the operation six months before it began, using long-term planning and intelligence-gathering.[131]
A total of 1,100–1,400[132] Palestinians (295–926 civilians) and 13 Israelis were killed in the 22-day war.[133] The conflict damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes,[134][135] 15 of Gaza's 27 hospitals and 43 of its 110 primary health care facilities,[136] 800 water wells,[137] 186 greenhouses,[138] and nearly all of its 10,000 family farms;[139] leaving 50,000 homeless,[140] 400,000–500,000 without running water,[140][141] one million without electricity,[141] and resulting in acute food shortages.[142] The people of Gaza still suffer from the loss of these facilities and homes, especially since they have great challenges to rebuild them.
2014: Gaza War
On 5 June 2014, Fatah signed a unity agreement with the Hamas political party.[143]
Most of the demonstrators demonstrated peacefully far from the border fence. Peter Cammack, a fellow with the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argued that the march indicated a new trend in Palestinian society and Hamas, with a shift away from violence towards non-violent forms of protest.[155] Nevertheless, groups consisting mainly of young men approached the fence and committed acts of violence directed towards the Israeli border.[156][157][158][159][160] Israeli officials said the demonstrations were used by Hamas as cover for launching attacks against Israel.[161]
In late February 2019, a United Nations Human Rights Council's independent commission found that of the 489 cases of Palestinian deaths or injuries analyzed, only two were possibly justified as responses to danger by Israeli security forces. The commission deemed the rest of the cases illegal, and concluded with a recommendation calling on Israel to examine whether war crimes or crimes against humanity had been committed, and if so, to bring those responsible to trial.[162][163]
On 28 February 2019, the Commission said it had ""reasonable grounds" to believe Israeli soldiers may have committed war crimes and shot at journalists, health workers and children during protests in Gaza in 2018." Israel refused to take part in the inquiry and rejected the report.[164]
2021: Israel–Palestine crisis
Before the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, Gaza had 48% unemployment and half of the population lived in poverty. During the crisis, 66 children died (551 children in the previous conflict). On 13 June 2021, a high level World Bank delegation visited Gaza to witness the damage. Mobilization with UN and EU partners is ongoing to finalize a needs assessment in support of Gaza's reconstruction and recovery.[165]
Another escalation between 5 and 8 August 2022 resulted in property damage and displacement of people as a result of airstrikes.[166][167]
On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched a major attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing at least 1,300 people and taking at least 199 hostages.[168] On 9 October 2023, Israel declared war on Hamas and imposed a "total blockade" of the Gaza Strip.[169] The blockade was announced by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who declared: "There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."[170][171]
Geography
Palestinians on the Gaza beach in 2006
The Gaza Strip is 41 km (25 mi) long, from 6 to 12 km (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide, and has a total area of 365 km2 (141 sq mi).[15][16] It has a 51 km (32 mi) border with Israel, and an 11 km (7 mi) border with Egypt, near the city of Rafah.[172]
Khan Yunis is located 7 km (4.3 mi) northeast of Rafah, and several towns around Deir el-Balah are located along the coast between it and Gaza City. Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun are located to the north and northeast of Gaza City, respectively. The Gush Katif bloc of Israeli settlements used to exist on the sand dunes adjacent to Rafah and Khan Yunis, along the southwestern edge of the 40 km (25 mi) Mediterranean coastline. Al Deira beach is a popular venue for surfers.[173]
The Gaza Strip has a hot semi-arid climate (KöppenBSh), with warm winters during which practically all the annual rainfall occurs, and dry, hot summers. Despite the dryness, humidity is high throughout the year. Annual rainfall is higher than in any part of Egypt at between 225 mm (9 in) in the south and 400 mm (16 in) in the north, but almost all of this falls between November and February. Environmental problems include desertification; salination of fresh water; sewage treatment; water-borne diseases; soil degradation; and depletion and contamination of underground water resources.
Downtown Gaza, 2012Beit Hanoun region of Gaza in August 2014, after Israeli bombardments
Damaged UN school and remmants of the Ministry of Interior in Gaza City, December 2012
Since its takeover of Gaza, Hamas has exercised executive authority over the Gaza Strip, and it governs the territory through its own ad hoc executive, legislative, and judicial bodies.[177] The Hamas government of 2012 was the second Palestinian Hamas-dominated government, ruling over the Gaza Strip, since the split of the Palestinian National Authority in 2007. It was announced in early September 2012.[178] The reshuffle of the previous government was approved by Gaza-based Hamas MPs from the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) or parliament.[178] Since the Hamas takeover in 2007, the Gaza Strip has been described as a "de factoone-party state", although it tolerates other political groups, including leftist ones such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).[179][180][181][182]
The legal code Hamas applies in Gaza is based on Ottoman laws, the British Mandate's 1936 legal code, Palestinian Authority law, Sharia law, and Israeli military orders. Hamas maintains a judicial system with civilian and military courts and a public prosecution service.[177][183]
Security
The Gaza Strip's security is mainly handled by Hamas through its military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, internal security service, and civil police force. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades have an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 operatives.[184]
Other groups and ideologies
A rally in support of Fatah in Gaza City in January 2013
Other Palestinian militant factions operate in the Gaza Strip alongside, and sometimes opposed to Hamas. The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, also known as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is the second largest militant faction operating in the Gaza Strip. Its military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, has an estimated 8,000 fighters.[185][186][187][188]
In June 2013, the Islamic Jihad broke ties with Hamas leaders after Hamas police fatally shot the commander of Islamic Jihad's military wing.[186] The third largest faction is the Popular Resistance Committees. Its military wing is known as the Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades.
Some Salafi-Jihadis operating in the Gaza Strip have been using as part of their name the term ʻArḍ al-Ribat "Land of the Ribat", as a name for Palestine, literally meaning "the land of standing vigilant watch on the frontier", but understood in the context of global jihad, which is fundamentally opposed to local, Palestinian nationalism.[190]
Status
Due to both the Israeli blockade and Hamas's authoritarian policies and actions, U.S. political organization Freedom House ranks Gaza as "not free".[177]
Legality of Hamas rule
After Hamas' June 2007 takeover, it ousted Fatah-linked officials from positions of power and authority (such as government positions, security services, universities, newspapers, etc.) and strove to enforce law by progressively removing guns from the hands of peripheral militias, clans, and criminal groups, and gaining control of supply tunnels. According to Amnesty International, under Hamas rule, newspapers were closed down and journalists were harassed.[191] Fatah demonstrations were forbidden or suppressed, as in the case of a large demonstration on the anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death, which resulted in the deaths of seven people, after protesters hurled stones at Hamas security forces.[192]
Hamas and other militant groups continued to fire Qassam rockets across the border into Israel. According to Israel, between the Hamas takeover and the end of January 2008, 697 rockets and 822 mortar bombs were fired at Israeli towns.[193] In response, Israel targeted Qassam launchers and military targets and declared the Gaza Strip a hostile entity. In January 2008, Israel curtailed travel from Gaza, the entry of goods, and cut fuel supplies, resulting in power shortages. This brought charges that Israel was inflicting collective punishment on the Gaza population, leading to international condemnation. Despite multiple reports from within the Strip that food and other essentials were in short supply,[194] Israel said that Gaza had enough food and energy supplies for weeks.[195]
The Israeli government uses economic means to pressure Hamas. Among other things, it caused Israeli commercial enterprises like banks and fuel companies to stop doing business with the Gaza Strip. The role of private corporations in the relationship between Israel and the Gaza Strip is an issue that has not been extensively studied.[196]
Due to continued rocket attacks including 50 in one day, in March 2008, air strikes and ground incursions by the IDF led to the deaths of over 110 Palestinians and extensive damage to Jabalia.[197]
A watchtower on the border between Rafah and Egypt
Israel states that it does not exercise effective control or authority over any land or institutions in the Gaza Strip and thus the Gaza Strip is no longer subject to the former military occupation.[204][205]Foreign Affairs Minister of IsraelTzipi Livni stated in January 2008: "Israel got out of Gaza. It dismantled its settlements there. No Israeli soldiers were left there after the disengagement."[206] On 30 January 2008, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that the Gaza Strip was not occupied by Israel in a decision on a petition against Israeli restrictions against the Gaza Strip which argued that it remained occupied. The Supreme Court ruled that Israel has not exercised effective control over the Gaza Strip since 2005, and accordingly, it was no longer occupied.[207]
In a legal analysis Hanne Cuyckens agrees with the Israeli position that Gaza is no longer occupied - "Gaza is not technically occupied, given that there is no longer any effective control in the sense of Article 42 of the Hague Regulations. ... Even though the majority argues that the Gaza Strip is still occupied, the effective control test at the core of the law of occupation is no longer met and hence Gaza is no longer occupied." She disagrees that Israel cannot therefore be held responsible for the situation in Gaza because: "Nonetheless, Israel continues to exercise an important level of control over the Gaza Strip and its population, making it difficult to accept that it would no longer have any obligations with regard to the Strip. ... the absence of occupation does not mean the absence of accountability. This responsibility is however not founded on the law of occupation but on general international humanitarian law, potentially complemented by international human rights law".[208]Yuval Shany also argues that Israel is probably not an occupying power in Gaza under international law, writing that "it is difficult to continue and regard Israel as the occupying power in Gaza under the traditional law of occupation".[209]
Avi Bell argues that the Gaza Strip is not occupied as the Israeli blockade does not constitute effective control, citing several international legal precedents that the occupier must be in direct control with forces on the ground and have direct control over the civilian population superior to that of the established government. He argues that Israeli control over Gaza does not meet these standards.[210] Likewise, Alex Stein claimed in 2014 that Israel did not occupy Gaza and its only obligation was to minimize harm to the civilian population during military operations.[211]
In 2022, Human Rights Watch issued a report on the situation in the Gaza Strip, which it called an "open-air prison" due to the blockade and held Israel responsible as the occupying power, and to a lesser degree Egypt, which has restricted movement of Palestinians through its border.[215] The report highlighted how this blockade has led to humanitarian crises, namely shortages of essential supplies, limited access to healthcare, and high levels of poverty and unemployment among the Palestinian population in Gaza.[215] It claimed that Israel has formed a formal policy of separation between Gaza and the West Bank, despite both forming parts of the Palestinian territories.[215] The Israeli blockade on Gaza has restricted the freedom of movement of Gaza Palestinians to both the West Bank and the outside world; in particular, Palestinian professionals were most impacted by these restrictions, as applying for travel permit takes several weeks.[215]
The Norwegian Refugee Council report issued in 2018, called the territory "the world's largest open-air prison", highlighting in it several figures, including lack of access to clean water, to reliable electrical supply, to health care, food and employment opportunities.[216] It lamented the fact that a majority of Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from psychological trauma, and a portion of which suffer from stunted growth.[216]
Statehood
Some Israeli analysts have argued that the Gaza Strip can be considered a de facto independent state, even if not internationally recognized as such. Israeli Major General Giora Eiland, who headed Israel's National Security Council, has argued that after the disengagement and Hamas takeover, the Gaza Strip became a de facto state for all intents and purposes, writing that "It has clear borders, an effective government, an independent foreign policy and an army. These are the exact characteristics of a state."[227]
Yagil Levy, a professor of Political Sociology and Public Policy at the Open University of Israel, wrote in a Haaretz column that "Gaza is a state in every respect, at least as social scientists understand the term. It has a central government with an army that's subordinate to it and that protects a population living in a defined territory. Nevertheless, Gaza is a castrated state. Israel and Egypt control its borders. The Palestinian Authority pays for the salaries of some of its civil servants. And the army doesn't have a monopoly on armed force, because there are independent militias operating alongside it."[228]
Moshe Arens, a former Israeli diplomat who served as Foreign Minister and Defense Minister, likewise wrote that Gaza is a state as "it has a government, an army, a police force and courts that dispense justice of sorts."[229] In November 2018, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked asserted that Gaza is an independent state, stating that Palestinians "already have a state" in Gaza.[230]
Geoffrey Aronson has likewise argued that the Gaza Strip can be considered a proto-state with some aspects of sovereignty, writing that "a proto-state already exists in the Gaza Strip, with objective attributes of sovereignty the Ramallah-based Mahmoud Abbas can only dream about. Gaza is a single, contiguous territory with de facto borders, recognised, if not always respected, by friend and foe alike. There are no permanently stationed foreign occupiers and, most importantly, no civilian Israeli settlements."[231] Writing in Newsweek, journalist Marc Schulman referred to Gaza as "an impoverished proto-state that lives off aid."[232]
Control over airspace
As agreed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the Oslo Accords, Israel has exclusive control over the airspace. Contrarily to the Oslo Accords, however, Israel interferes with Gaza's radio and TV transmissions, and Israel prevents the Palestinians from operating a seaport or airport.[233] The Accords permitted Palestinians to construct an airport, which was duly built and opened in 1998. Israel destroyed Gaza's only airport in 2001 and again in 2002, during the Second Intifada.[234][235]
The Israeli army makes use of drones, which can launch precise missiles. They are equipped with high-resolution cameras and other sensors. The missile fired from a drone has its own cameras that allow the operator to observe the target from the moment of firing. After a missile has been launched, the drone operator can remotely divert it elsewhere. Drone operators can view objects on the ground in detail during both day and night.[236] Israeli drones routinely patrol over Gaza.
Buffer zone
Part of the territory is depopulated because of the imposition of buffer zones on both the Israeli and Egyptian borders.[237][238][239]
Initially, Israel imposed a 50-meter buffer zone in Gaza.[240] In 2000, it was expanded to 150 meters.[238] Following the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, an undefined buffer zone was maintained, including a no-fishing zone along the coast.
In 2009/2010, Israel expanded the buffer zone to 300 meters.[241][240][242] In 2010, the UN estimated that 30 percent of the arable land in Gaza had been lost to the buffer zone.[237][240]
On 25 February 2013, pursuant to a November 2012 ceasefire, Israel declared a buffer zone of 100 meters on land and 6 nautical miles offshore. In the following month, the zone was changed to 300 meters and 3 nautical miles. The 1994 Gaza Jericho Agreement allows 20 nautical miles, and the 2002 Bertini Commitment allows 12 nautical miles.[241][238]
In August 2015, the IDF confirmed a buffer zone of 300 meters for residents and 100 meters for farmers, but without explaining how to distinguish between the two.[243] As of 2015[update], on a third of Gaza's agricultural land, residents risk Israeli attacks. According to PCHR, Israeli attacks take place up to approximately 1.5 km (0.9 mi) from the border, making 17% of Gaza's total territory a risk zone.[238]
Israel says the buffer zone is needed to protect Israeli communities just over the border from sniper fire and rocket attacks. In the 18 months until November 2010, one Thai farm worker in Israel was killed by a rocket fired from Gaza. In 2010, according to IDF figures, 180 rockets and mortars had been fired into Israel by militants. In 6 months, 11 Palestinians civilians, including four children, had been killed by Israeli fire and at least 70 Palestinian civilians were injured in the same period, including at least 49 who were working collecting rubble and scrap metal.[237]
A buffer zone was also created on the Egyptian side of the Gaza–Egypt border. In 2014, scores of homes in Rafah were destroyed for the buffer zone.[244] According to Amnesty International, more than 800 homes were destroyed and more than 1,000 families evicted.[245] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed with the destruction of smuggling tunnels by flooding them, and then punishing the owners of the houses that contained entrances to the tunnels, including demolishing their houses, arguing that the tunnels had produced 1,800 millionaires, and were used for smuggling weapons, drugs, cash, and equipment for forging documents.[245]
Israel and Egypt maintain a blockade of the Gaza Strip, although Israel allows in limited quantities of medical humanitarian aid. The Red Cross claimed that the blockade harms the economy and causes a shortage of basic medicines and equipment such as painkillers and x-ray film.[246]
Israel claims the blockade is necessary to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. For example, in 2014, a Panamanian-flagged ship claiming to be carrying construction materials was boarded by the IDF and was found to contain Syrian produced rockets.[247] Israel maintains that the blockade is legal and necessary to limit Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip on its cities and to prevent Hamas from obtaining other weapons.[248][249][250][251][252][253][254]
Director of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Yuval Diskin did not oppose easing trade restrictions, but said that smuggling tunnels in Sinai and an open seaport in the Gaza Strip endangered Israel's security. According to Diskin, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had smuggled in over "5,000 rockets with ranges up to 40 km (25 mi)." Some of the rockets could reach as far as the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area.[255]
Israeli spokesman Mark Regev described Israel's actions as "sanctions," not a blockade, but a Gazan legal consultant for UNRWA called the blockade "an action outside of international law."[256]
In July 2010, British Prime Minister David Cameron said, "humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."[257] In response, the spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said, "The people of Gaza are the prisoners of the terrorist organization Hamas. The situation in Gaza is the direct result of Hamas' rule and priorities."
The Arab League accused Israel of waging a financial war.[258] The IDF strictly controlled travel within the area of the crossing points between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and sealed its border with Gaza. U.S. government travel guides warned tourists that the region was dangerous.
Facing mounting international pressure, Egypt and Israel lessened the restrictions starting in June 2010, when the Rafah border crossing from Egypt to Gaza was partially opened by Egypt. Egypt's foreign ministry said that the crossing would remain open mainly for people, but not for supplies.[259] Israel announced that it would allow the passage of civilian goods but not weapons and items that could be used for dual purposes.[260] In December 2015, Egypt asked Israel not to allow Turkish aid into the Gaza Strip.[261] Benjamin Netanyahu replied that it was impossible to lift the siege on Gaza and that the security of Israel is the primary issue for him. He confirmed in December 2015 "that Israel is the only country that currently sends supplies to the coastal enclave".[262]
In January and February 2011, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) assessed measures taken to ease the blockade[263] and concluded that they were helpful but not sufficient to improve the lives of the local inhabitants.[263] UNOCHA called on Israel to reduce restrictions on exports and the import of construction materials, and to lift the general ban on movement between Gaza and the West Bank via Israel.[263] The blockade results in a loss of over $17 million in exports.[264] After Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak resigned on 28 May 2011, Egypt permanently opened its border with Gaza to students, medical patients, and foreign passport holders.[263][265]
Following the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état, Egypt's military has destroyed most of the 1,200 tunnels which are used for smuggling food, weapons, and other goods to Gaza.[266] After the August 2013 Rabaa Massacre in Egypt, the border crossing was closed 'indefinitely.'[267]
Israel has alternately restricted or allowed goods and people to cross the terrestrial border and handles vicariously the movement of goods into and out of Gaza by air and sea. Israel largely provides for Gaza's water supply, electricity, and communications infrastructure. While the import of food is restricted through the Gaza blockade, the Israeli military destroys agricultural crops by spraying toxic chemicals over the Gazan lands, using aircraft flying over the border zone. According to the IDF, the spraying is intended "to prevent the concealment of IED's [Improvised Explosive Devices], and to disrupt and prevent the use of the area for destructive purposes."[268] Gaza's agricultural research and development station was destroyed in 2014 and again in January 2016, while import of new equipment is obstructed.[269]
Movement of people
Because of the Israeli–Egyptian blockade, the population is not free to leave or enter the Gaza Strip. Only in exceptional cases are people allowed to pass through the Erez Crossing or the Rafah Border Crossing.[241][270][271][272] In 2015, a Gazan woman was not allowed to travel through Israel to Jordan on her way to her own wedding. The Israeli authorities found she did not meet the criteria for travel, namely only in exceptional humanitarian cases.[273]
Israel restricts movement of Palestinian residents between the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has implemented a policy of allowing Palestinian movement from the West Bank to Gaza, but making it quite difficult for Gaza residents to move to the West Bank. Israel typically refuses to allow Gaza residents to leave for the West Bank, even when the Gaza resident is originally a West Bank resident. The Israeli human rights organization Gisha has helped Gaza residents who had moved from the West Bank to Gaza return to the West Bank arguing that extremely pressing personal circumstances provide humanitarian grounds for relief.[291]
Sea-view from the Al Deira Hotel on the Gaza coastA resort in the Gaza Strip built on the location of the former Israeli settlement of Netzarim
The economy of the Gaza Strip is severely hampered by Egypt and Israel's almost total blockade, the high population density (comparable to that of Hong Kong),[19] limited land access, strict internal and external security controls, the effects of Israeli military operations, and restrictions on labor and trade access across the border. Per capita income (PPP) was estimated at US$3,100 in 2009, a position of 164th in the world.[20] A UN report in 2022 estimated Gaza Strip's unemployment rate to be 45% and 65% of the population under poverty, living standards went down by 27% compared to 2006 and 80% of the population depends on international aid for survival.[292] Gaza Strip industries are generally small family businesses that produce textiles, soap, olive-wood carvings, and mother-of-pearl souvenirs.
The main agricultural products are olives, citrus, vegetables, Halalbeef, and dairy products. Primary exports are citrus and cut flowers, while primary imports are food, consumer goods, and construction materials. The main trade partners of the Gaza Strip are Israel and Egypt.[20]
The EU described the Gaza economy in 2013 as follows: "Since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007 and following the closure imposed by Israel, the situation in the Strip has been one of chronic need, de-development and donor dependency, despite a temporary relaxation on restrictions in movement of people and goods following a flotilla raid in 2010. The closure has effectively cut off access for exports to traditional markets in Israel, transfers to the West Bank and has severely restricted imports. Exports are now down to 2% of 2007 levels."[87]
According to Sara Roy, one senior IDF officer told an UNWRA official in 2015 that Israel's policy towards the Gaza Strip consisted of: "No development, no prosperity, no humanitarian crisis."[293]
Natural resources of Gaza include arable land—about a third of the Strip is irrigated. Recently, natural gas was discovered. The Gaza Strip is largely dependent on water from Wadi Gaza, which also supplies Israel.[294] Most of water comes from groundwater wells (90% in 2021). Its quality is low and most of it is unfit for human consumption. The remainder is produced by water desalination plants or bought from Israel's Mekorot (6% of all water in 2021).[295] According to Human Rights Watch, international humanitarian law requires Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, to ensure that the basic needs of the civilian population are provided for.[296]
Gaza's marine gas reserves extend 32 kilometres from the Gaza Strip's coastline[297] and were calculated at 35 BCM.[298]
In 2010, approximately 1.6 million people lived in the Gaza Strip,[20] almost 1.0 million of them were UN-registered refugees.[299] The majority descend from refugees who were driven from or left their homes during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Strip's population has continued to increase since that time, mainly due to a total fertility rate which peaked at 8.3 children per woman in 1991. This fell to 4.4 children per woman in 2013 which was still among the highest worldwide.[20][300]
In a ranking by total fertility rate, this places Gaza 34th of 224 regions.[20][300] This leads to the Gaza Strip having an unusually high proportion of children in the population, with 43.5% of the population being 14 or younger and a median age in 2014 of 18, compared to a world average of 28, and 30 in Israel. The only countries with a lower median age are countries in Africa such as Uganda where it was 15.[300]
From 1987 to 1991, during the First Intifada, Hamas campaigned for the wearing of the hijab head-cover. In the course of this campaign, women who chose not to wear the hijab were verbally and physically harassed by Hamas activists, leading to hijabs being worn "just to avoid problems on the streets".[303]
Muslim worshippers in Gaza
Since Hamas took over in 2007, attempts have been made by Islamist activists to impose "Islamic dress" and to require women to wear the hijab.[304][305] The government's "Islamic Endowment Ministry" has deployed Virtue Committee members to warn citizens of the "dangers of immodest dress, card playing and dating".[306] However, there are no government laws imposing dress and other moral standards, and the Hamas education ministry reversed one effort to impose Islamic dress on students.[304] There has also been successful resistance[by whom?] to attempts by local Hamas officials to impose Islamic dress on women.[307]
According to Human Rights Watch, the Hamas-controlled government stepped up its efforts to "Islamize" Gaza in 2010, efforts it says included the "repression of civil society" and "severe violations of personal freedom."[308]
Palestinian researcher Khaled Al-Hroub has criticized what he called the "Taliban-like steps" Hamas has taken: "The Islamization that has been forced upon the Gaza Strip—the suppression of social, cultural, and press freedoms that do not suit Hamas's view[s]—is an egregious deed that must be opposed. It is the reenactment, under a religious guise, of the experience of [other] totalitarian regimes and dictatorships."[309] Hamas officials denied having any plans to impose Islamic law. One legislator stated that "[w]hat you are seeing are incidents, not policy" and that "we believe in persuasion".[306]
Violence against Christians has been recorded. The owner of a Christian bookshop was abducted and murdered[310] and in February 2008, the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) library in Gaza City was bombed.[311]
In addition to Hamas, a Salafist movement began to appear about 2005 in Gaza, characterized by "a strict lifestyle based on that of the earliest followers of Islam".[312] As of 2015[update], there are estimated to be only "hundreds or perhaps a few thousand" Salafists in Gaza.[312]
In 2010, illiteracy among Gazan youth was less than 1%. According to UNRWA figures, there are 640 schools in Gaza: 383 government schools, 221 UNRWA schools and 36 private schools, serving a total of 441,452 students.[313]
In 2010, Al Zahara, a private school in central Gaza introduced a special program for mental development based on math computations. The program was created in Malaysia in 1993, according to the school principal, Majed al-Bari.[314]
In June 2011, some Gazans, upset that UNRWA did not rebuild their homes that were lost in the Second Intifada, blocked UNRWA from performing its services and shut down UNRWA's summer camps. Gaza residents closed UNRWA's emergency department, social services office and ration stores.[315]
In 2012, there were five universities in the Gaza Strip and eight new schools were under construction.[316] By 2018, nine universities were open.
The Community College of Applied Science and Technology (CCAST) was established in 1998 in Gaza City. In 2003, the college moved into its new campus and established the Gaza Polytechnic Institute (GPI) in 2006 in southern Gaza. In 2007, the college received accreditation to award BA degrees as the University College of Applied Sciences (UCAS). In 2010, the college had a student population of 6,000, in eight departments offering over 40 majors.[317]
Health
In Gaza, there are hospitals and additional healthcare facilities. Because of the high number of young people the mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world, at 0.315% per year.[318] The infant mortality rate is ranked 105th highest out of 224 countries and territories, at 16.55 deaths per 1,000 births.[319] The Gaza Strip places 24th out of 135 countries according to Human Poverty Index.
A study carried out by Johns Hopkins University (U.S.) and Al-Quds University (in Abu Dis) for CARE International in late 2002 revealed very high levels of dietary deficiency among the Palestinian population. The study found that 17.5% of children aged 6–59 months suffered from chronic malnutrition. 53% of women of reproductive age and 44% of children were found to be anemic. Insecurity in obtaining sufficient food as of 2016 affects roughly 70% of Gaza households, as the number of people requiring assistance from UN agencies has risen from 72,000 in 2000, to 800,000 in 2014[320]
After the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip health conditions in Gaza Strip faced new challenges. World Health Organization (WHO) expressed its concerns about the consequences of the Palestinian internal political fragmentation; the socioeconomic decline; military actions; and the physical, psychological and economic isolation on the health of the population in Gaza.[321] In a 2012 study of the occupied territories, the WHO reported that roughly 50% of the young children and infants under two years old and 39.1% of pregnant women receiving antenatal services care in Gaza suffer from iron-deficiency anemia. The organization also observed chronic malnutrition in children under five "is not improving and may be deteriorating."[322]
According to Palestinian leaders in the Gaza Strip, the majority of medical aid delivered are "past their expiration date." Mounir el-Barash, the director of donations in Gaza's health department, claims 30% of aid sent to Gaza is used.[323][failed verification]
Gazans who desire medical care in Israeli hospitals must apply for a medical visa permit. In 2007, State of Israel granted 7,176 permits and denied 1,627.[324][325]
In 2012, two hospitals funded by Turkey and Saudi Arabia were under construction.[326]
Culture and sports
Gaza amusement park.
Fine arts
The Gaza Strip has been home to a significant branch of the contemporary Palestinian art movement since the mid-20th century. Notable artists include painters Ismail Ashour, Shafiq Redwan, Bashir Senwar, Majed Shalla, Fayez Sersawi, Abdul Rahman al Muzayan and Ismail Shammout, and media artists Taysir Batniji (who lives in France) and Laila al Shawa (who lives in London). An emerging generation of artists is also active in nonprofit art organizations such as Windows From Gaza and Eltiqa Group, which regularly host exhibitions and events open to the public.[327]
In 2010, Gaza inaugurated its first Olympic-size swimming pool at the As-Sadaka club. The opening ceremony was held by the Islamic Society.[331] The swimming team of as-Sadaka holds several gold and silver medals from Palestinian swimming competitions.[332]
From 1920 to 1948, the Gaza Strip hosted sections of the Palestine Railways, connecting the region with Egypt.
Due to the on-going blockade of Gaza, any external travel from Gaza requires cooperation from either Egypt or Israel.
Salah al-Din Road, also known as the Salah ad-Deen Highway, is the main highway of the Gaza Strip. It extends over 45 km (28 mi), spanning the entire length of the territory from the Rafah Crossing in the south to the Erez Crossing in the north.[333] The road is named after the 12th-century Ayyubid general Salah al-Din.[81]
The Port of Gaza has been an important and active port since antiquity. Despite plans under the Oslo Peace Accords to expand the port, it has been under a blockade since Hamas was elected as a majority party in the 2006 elections. Both the Israeli Navy and Egypt enforce the blockade, which limits many aspects of life in Gaza. According to Human Rights Watch, it particularly limits the movement of people and commerce, with exports being most affected. The improvement and rebuilding of infrastructure is also negatively impacted by these sanctions.[334] Plans to expand the port were halted after the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada.
The Yasser Arafat International Airport opened in November 1998 after the signing of the Oslo II Accord and the Wye River Memorandum. It was forced to close after Israel deconstruction in October 2000. Its radar station and control tower were destroyed by Israel Defense Forces aircraft in 2001 during the al-Aqsa Intifada. Bulldozers razed the runway in January 2002.[234][235] The only remaining runway in the Strip, at the Gush Katif Airport, fell into disuse following Israeli disengagement. The airspace over Gaza may be restricted by the Israeli Air Force as the Oslo Accords authorized.
^The kibbutz community had been established as part of the Jewish Agency's "11 points in the Negev" plan, in which 11 Jewish villages were built across the Negev in a single night as a response to the Morrison-Grady Plan, which threatened to exclude the Negev from a future Jewish State.[49]
^Sanger, Andrew (2011). "The Contemporary Law of Blockade and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla". In M.N. Schmitt; Louise Arimatsu; Tim McCormack (eds.). Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law - 2010. Vol. 13. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 429. doi:10.1007/978-90-6704-811-8_14. ISBN978-90-6704-811-8. Israel claims it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip, maintaining that it is neither a State nor a territory occupied or controlled by Israel, but rather it has 'sui generis' status. Pursuant to the Disengagement Plan, Israel dismantled all military institutions and settlements in Gaza and there is no longer a permanent Israeli military or civilian presence in the territory. However, the Plan also provided that Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip as well as maintaining an Israeli military presence on the Egyptian-Gaza border, and reserving the right to reenter Gaza at will. Israel continues to control six of Gaza's seven land crossings, its maritime borders and airspace and the movement of goods and persons in and out of the territory. Egypt controls one of Gaza's land crossings. Gaza is also dependent on Israel for water, electricity, telecommunications and other utilities, currency, issuing IDs, and permits to enter and leave the territory. Israel also has sole control of the Palestinian Population Registry through which the Israeli Army regulates who is classified as a Palestinian and who is a Gazan or West Banker. Since 2000 aside from a limited number of exceptions Israel has refused to add people to the Palestinian Population Registry. It is this direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza that has led the United Nations, the UN General Assembly, the UN Fact Finding Mission to Gaza, International human rights organisations, US Government websites, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a significant number of legal commentators, to reject the argument that Gaza is no longer occupied. * Scobbie, Iain (2012). Elizabeth Wilmshurst (ed.). International Law and the Classification of Conflicts. Oxford University Press. p. 295. ISBN978-0-19-965775-9. Even after the accession to power of Hamas, Israel's claim that it no longer occupies Gaza has not been accepted by UN bodies, most States, nor the majority of academic commentators because of its exclusive control of its border with Gaza and crossing points including the effective control it exerted over the Rafah crossing until at least May 2011, its control of Gaza's maritime zones and airspace which constitute what Aronson terms the 'security envelope' around Gaza, as well as its ability to intervene forcibly at will in Gaza. * Gawerc, Michelle (2012). Prefiguring Peace: Israeli-Palestinian Peacebuilding Partnerships. Lexington Books. p. 44. ISBN9780739166109. While Israel withdrew from the immediate territory, it remained in control of all access to and from Gaza through the border crossings, as well as through the coastline and the airspace. In addition, Gaza was dependent upon Israel for water, electricity sewage communication networks and for its trade (Gisha 2007. Dowty 2008). In other words, while Israel maintained that its occupation of Gaza ended with its unilateral disengagement Palestinians – as well as many human rights organizations and international bodies – argued that Gaza was by all intents and purposes still occupied.
^The New Oxford Dictionary of English. 1998. p. 761. ISBN0-19-861263-X. "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza...".
^Joshua Castellino, Kathleen A. Cavanaugh, Minority Rights in the Middle East,Archived 2 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine Oxford University Press 2013 p.150:'Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza constitute a majority (demographically) with representation by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), a self-governing body run by Fatah in the West Bank, and by Hamas in the Gaza Strip'.
^Tristan Dunning, Hamas, Jihad and Popular Legitimacy: Reinterpreting Resistance in Palestine,Archived 2 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine Routledge, 2016 p.212:'Since taking sole control of Gaza in June 2007, Hamas has proven itself to be a remarkably resilient and resourceful government entity. The movement has clearly entrenched itself as the hegemonic power in the coastal enclave to such an extent that the International Crisis Group contends that the power struggle in Gaza is no longer between Hamas and Fatah. Rather the main source of confrontation is between Hamas and other more hardline Islamists and salafists. . . Hamas has been far more successful in an administrative sense than the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, despite having access to only a fraction of the resources.'
^David Rose, 'The Gaza Bombshell,'Archived 28 April 2018 at the Wayback MachineVanity Fair April, 2008. 'The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America's behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. . But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.'
^Sara Roy, Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza,p.45Archived 2 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine. 'Dahlan, who was supported by U.S. officials, has been a bitter enemy of Hamas since his 1996 crackdown on the movement. He consistently refused to accept the Palestinian unity government brokered by the Saudi government in the Mecca Agreement "and made his opposition intolerable to Hamas when he refused to subject the security forces under his command, armed and trained by the U.S., to the legitimate Palestinian unity government as agreed between Hamas and Fatah." Alistair Crooke, a former Middle East adviser to the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, similarly observed, "Dahlan refused to deal with (the independent interior minister appointed to the unity government), and put his troops on the streets in defiance of the interior minister. Hamas felt that they had little option but to take control of security away from forces which were in fact creating insecurity." Hence, Hamas was not attempting a coup against the government or the Fatah organization as a whole but also against Dahlan's U.S.-funded militia (and individual Fatah loyalists it blamed for the murder of Hamas members).'
^Sara Roy, Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector,Archived 2 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine Princeton University Press, 2013 p.41:'Hamas's democratic victory, however, was short-lived . .followed as it was in June 2006 by an Israeli and US-led international political and economic boycott of the new Palestinian government. The boycott amounted to a form of collective punishment against the entire Palestinian population and, to my knowledge, was the first time in the history of the conflict that the international community imposed sanctions on the occupied rather than the occupier.'
Anna Ball, 'Impossible Intimacies,' in Anastasia Valassopoulos (ed.) Arab Cultural Studies: History, Politics and the Popular, Routledge 2013 pp71-91 p.73: "...Gaza Strip Barrier, a structure that has sealed Gaza's border with Israel and has led to Gaza's description as ″the world's largest open-air prison",
^ abcSanger, Andrew (2011). "The Contemporary Law of Blockade and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla". In M.N. Schmitt; Louise Arimatsu; Tim McCormack (eds.). Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law - 2010. Vol. 13. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 429. doi:10.1007/978-90-6704-811-8_14. ISBN978-90-6704-811-8. Israel claims it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip, maintaining that it is neither a State nor a territory occupied or controlled by Israel, but rather it has 'sui generis' status. Pursuant to the Disengagement Plan, Israel dismantled all military institutions and settlements in Gaza and there is no longer a permanent Israeli military or civilian presence in the territory. However the Plan also provided that Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip as well as maintaining an Israeli military presence on the Egyptian-Gaza border. and reserving the right to reenter Gaza at will. Israel continues to control six of Gaza's seven land crossings, its maritime borders and airspace and the movement of goods and persons in and out of the territory. Egypt controls one of Gaza's land crossings. Troops from the Israeli Defence Force regularly enter pans of the territory and/or deploy missile attacks, drones and sonic bombs into Gaza. Israel has declared a no-go buffer zone that stretches deep into Gaza: if Gazans enter this zone they are shot on sight. Gaza is also dependent on Israel for water, electricity, telecommunications and other utilities, currency, issuing IDs, and permits to enter and leave the territory. Israel also has sole control of the Palestinian Population Registry through which the Israeli Army regulates who is classified as a Palestinian and who is a Gazan or West Banker. Since 2000 aside from a limited number of exceptions Israel has refused to add people to the Palestinian Population Registry. It is this direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza that has led the United Nations, the UN General Assembly, the UN Fact Finding Mission to Gaza, International human rights organisations, US Government websites, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a significant number of legal commentators, to reject the argument that Gaza is no longer occupied. *Scobbie, Iain (2012). Elizabeth Wilmshurst (ed.). International Law and the Classification of Conflicts. Oxford University Press. p. 295. ISBN978-0-19-965775-9. Even after the accession to power of Hamas, Israel's claim that it no longer occupies Gaza has not been accepted by UN bodies, most States, nor the majority of academic commentators because of its exclusive control of its border with Gaza and crossing points including the effective control it exerted over the Rafah crossing until at least May 2011, its control of Gaza's maritime zones and airspace which constitute what Aronson terms the 'security envelope' around Gaza, as well as its ability to intervene forcibly at will in Gaza. *Gawerc, Michelle (2012). Prefiguring Peace: Israeli-Palestinian Peacebuilding Partnerships. Lexington Books. p. 44. ISBN9780739166109. Archived from the original on 28 February 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2016. While Israel withdrew from the immediate territory, it remained in control of all access to and from Gaza through the border crossings, as well as through the coastline and the airspace. In addition, Gaza was dependent upon Israel for water, electricity sewage communication networks and for its trade (Gisha 2007. Dowty 2008). In other words, while Israel maintained that its occupation of Gaza ended with its unilateral disengagement Palestinians – as well as many human right organizations and international bodies – argued that Gaza was by all intents and purposes still occupied.
^"Gaza Strip", The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 9 November 2022, archived from the original on 12 January 2021, retrieved 14 November 2022
^Lustick, Ian S. (1993). Brynen, Rex; Hiltermann, Joost R.; Hudson, Michael C.; Hunter, F. Robert; Lockman, Zachary; Beinin, Joel; McDowall, David; Nassar, Jamal R.; Heacock, Roger (eds.). "Writing the Intifada: Collective Action in the Occupied Territories". World Politics. 45 (4): 560–594. doi:10.2307/2950709. ISSN0043-8871. JSTOR2950709. S2CID147140028.
^Walid Salem, 'Human Security from Below: Palestinian Citizens Protection Strategies, 1988–2005,' in Monica den Boer, Jaap de Wilde (eds.), The Viability of Human Security,Amsterdam University Press, 2008 pp. 179–201 p. 190.
^Lustick, Ian S. (1993). Brynen, Rex; Hiltermann, Joost R.; Hudson, Michael C.; Hunter, F. Robert; Lockman, Zachary; Beinin, Joel; McDowall, David; Nassar, Jamal R.; Heacock, Roger (eds.). "Writing the Intifada: Collective Action in the Occupied Territories". World Politics. 45 (4): 560–594. doi:10.2307/2950709. ISSN0043-8871. JSTOR2950709. S2CID147140028.
^Walid Salem, 'Human Security from Below: Palestinian Citizens Protection Strategies, 1988–2005,' in Monica den Boer, Jaap de Wilde (eds.), The Viability of Human Security,Amsterdam University Press, 2008 pp. 179–201 p. 190.
^Cohen, Samy (2010). "Botched Engagement in the Intifada". Israel's Asymmetric Wars. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 73–91. doi:10.1057/9780230112971_6. ISBN978-1-349-28896-0."The al-Aqsa Intifada ushered in an era with a new brand of violence.1 It began with a popular uprising following Ariel Sharon's visit to Temple Mount on September 28, 2000. But unlike the first Intifada, which was basically a civil uprising against the symbols of an occupation that has lasted since June 1967, the second Intifada very quickly lapsed into an armed struggle between Palestinian activists and the Israeli armed forces. Almost from the very start, armed men took to hiding among crowds of Palestinians, using them as cover to shoot from. The IDF retaliated forcefully, each time causing several casualties."
^Kober, Avi (2007). "Targeted Killing during the Second Intifada:: The Quest for Effectiveness". Journal of Conflict Studies. 27 (1): 94–114. ISSN1198-8614. Archived from the original on 5 April 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022. Based on the assumption that there was no longer one front or one line of contact, Israel was carrying out dozens of simultaneous operations on the ground and in the air on a daily basis, including TKs, which were supposed to have multi-dimensional effects. According to Byman, TKs were mostly attractive to Israelis as they satisfied domestic demands for a forceful response to Palestinian terrorism. Byman also believes that by bolstering public morale, the TKs helped counter one of the terrorists' primary objectives – to reduce the faith of Israelis in their own government.
^Matta, Nada; Rojas, René (2016). "The Second Intifada: A Dual Strategy Arena". European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie. 57 (1): 66. doi:10.1017/S0003975616000035. ISSN0003-9756. S2CID146939293. Archived from the original on 5 April 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022. Suicide terror, lethal attacks indiscriminately carried out against civilians via self-immolation, attained prominence in the Palestinian repertoire beginning in March 2001. From that point until the end of 2005, at which point they virtually ceased, 57 suicide bombings were carried out, causing 491 civilian deaths, 73% of the total civilians killed by Palestinian resistance organizations and 50% of all Israeli fatalities during this period. While not the modal coercive tactic, suicide terror was the most efficient in terms of lethality, our basic measure of its efficacy.
^Brym, R. J.; Araj, B. (1 June 2006). "Suicide Bombing as Strategy and Interaction: The Case of the Second Intifada". Social Forces. 84 (4): 1969. doi:10.1353/sof.2006.0081. ISSN0037-7732. S2CID146180585. In the early years of the 21st century, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza became the region of the world with the highest frequency of - and the highest per capita death toll due to - suicide bombing.
^Schweitzer, Y. (2010). The rise and fall of suicide bombings in the second Intifada. Strategic Assessment, 13(3), 39–48. "As part of the violence perpetrated by the Palestinians during the second intifada, suicide bombings played a particularly prominent role and served as the primary effective weapon in the hands of the planners."
^Schachter, J. (2010). The End of the Second Intifada?Archived 30 September 2021 at the Wayback Machine. Strategic Assessment, 13(3), 63–70. "This article attempts to identify the end of the second intifada by focusing on the incidence of suicide bombings, arguably the most important element of second intifada-related violence."
^Sela-Shayovitz, R. (2007). Suicide bombers in Israel: Their motivations, characteristics, and prior activity in terrorist organizations. International Journal of Conflict and Violence (IJCV), 1(2), 163. "The period of the second Intifada significantly differs from other historical periods in Israeli history, because it has been characterized by intensive and numerous suicide attacks that have made civilian life into a battlefront."
Sanger, Andrew (2011). "The Contemporary Law of Blockade and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla". In M.N. Schmitt; Louise Arimatsu; Tim McCormack (eds.). Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law - 2010. Vol. 13. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 429. doi:10.1007/978-90-6704-811-8_14. ISBN978-90-6704-811-8. Israel claims it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip, maintaining that it is neither a Stale nor a territory occupied or controlled by Israel, but rather it has 'sui generis' status. Pursuant to the Disengagement Plan, Israel dismantled all military institutions and settlements in Gaza and there is no longer a permanent Israeli military or civilian presence in the territory. However, the Plan also provided that Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip as well as maintaining an Israeli military presence on the Egyptian-Gaza border. and reserving the right to reenter Gaza at will. Israel continues to control six of Gaza's seven land crossings, its maritime borders and airspace and the movement of goods and persons in and out of the territory. Egypt controls one of Gaza's land crossings. Troops from the Israeli Defence Force regularly enter pans of the territory and/or deploy missile attacks, drones and sonic bombs into Gaza. Israel has declared a no-go buffer zone that stretches deep into Gaza: if Gazans enter this zone they are shot on sight. Gaza is also dependent on Israel for water, electricity, telecommunications and other utilities, currency, issuing IDs, and permits to enter and leave the territory. Israel also has sole control of the Palestinian Population Registry through which the Israeli Army regulates who is classified as a Palestinian and who is a Gazan or West Banker. Since 2000 aside from a limited number of exceptions Israel has refused to add people to the Palestinian Population Registry. It is this direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza that has led the United Nations, the UN General Assembly, the UN Fact Finding Mission to Gaza, International human rights organisations, US Government websites, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a significant number of legal commentators, to reject the argument that Gaza is no longer occupied.
Scobbie, Iain (2012). Elizabeth Wilmshurst (ed.). International Law and the Classification of Conflicts. Oxford University Press. p. 295. ISBN978-0-19-965775-9. Even after the accession to power of Hamas, Israel's claim that it no longer occupies Gaza has not been accepted by UN bodies, most States, nor the majority of academic commentators because of its exclusive control of its border with Gaza and crossing points including the effective control it exerted over the Rafah crossing until at least May 2011, its control of Gaza's maritime zones and airspace which constitute what Aronson terms the 'security envelope' around Gaza, as well as its ability to intervene forcibly at will in Gaza.
Gawerc, Michelle (2012). Prefiguring Peace: Israeli-Palestinian Peacebuilding Partnerships. Lexington Books. p. 44. ISBN9780739166109. Archived from the original on 28 February 2023. Retrieved 8 November 2016. While Israel withdrew from the immediate territory, it remained in control of all access to and from Gaza through the border crossings, as well as through the coastline and the airspace. In addition, Gaza was dependent upon Israel for water, electricity sewage communication networks and for its trade (Gisha 2007. Dowty 2008). ln other words, while Israel maintained that its occupation of Gaza ended with its unilateral disengagement Palestinians – as well as many human right organizations and international bodies – argued that Gaza was by all intents and purposes still occupied.
^Black, Ian; Tran, Mark (15 June 2007). "Hamas takes control of Gaza". Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 31 August 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2010.
^David M. Halbfinger, Iyad Abuheweila, Jugal K.Patel '300 Meters in Gaza: Snipers, Burning Tires and a Contested Fence,'The New York Times 15 May 2018.’ Most Gazans are Palestinian refugees or their descendants, and marching on the fence highlights their desire to reclaim the lands and homes from which they were displaced 70 years ago in the war surrounding Israel's creation.’
^Adam Rasgon, "Masses of Gazans head to border area for 'right of return' says organizer"Archived 5 May 2018 at the Wayback MachineThe Jerusalem Post, 28 March 2018. "Masses of Palestinians are expected to come to the Gaza border on Friday and move into tents there for a planned six-week-long protest 'to demand the right of return to the homes and villages that they were expelled from in 1948'", Ahmad Abu Ratima, an organizer of the protest, told The Jerusalem Post".
^Daoud Kuttab, "The truth about Gaza"Archived 18 June 2018 at the Wayback MachineAl-Monitor, 23 May 2018; "This is clearly a new trend in Palestinian society that attempts to expand the notions of resistance and nonviolent protests."
^"How powerful is Hamas?". The Economist. ISSN0013-0613. Retrieved 17 October 2023. In 2006, a year after Israel withdrew from Gaza, Hamas won a majority of seats in a Palestinian election and later formed a new unity government with Fatah, its nationalist rival. In June 2007, after a brief civil war, it assumed sole control of Gaza, leaving Fatah to run the Palestinian Authority (pa) in the West Bank. In response Israel and Egypt imposed a suffocating blockade on the coastal strip in 2007, strangling its economy and in effect confining its people in an open-air prison. There have been no elections since. Hamas has run Gaza as an oppressive one-party state, leaving some Palestinians there disenchanted with its leadership. Nevertheless, Palestinians widely consider it more competent than the ailing, corrupt pa.
^Tristan Dunning, Hamas, Jihad and Popular Legitimacy: Reinterpreting Resistance in Palestine,Archived 2 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine Routledge, 2016 p.212:'Since taking sole control of Gaza in June 2007, Hamas has proven itself to be a remarkably resilient and resourceful government entity. The movement has clearly entrenched itself as the hegemonic power in the coastal enclave to such an extent that the International Crisis Group contends that the power struggle in Gaza is no longer between Hamas and Fatah. Rather the main source of confrontation is between Hamas and other more hardline Islamists and salafists. . . Hamas has been far more successful in an administrative sense than the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, despite having access to only a fraction of the resources.'
^Burton, Guy (2012). "Hamas and its Vision of Development". Third World Quarterly. 33 (3): 525–540. ISSN0143-6597. JSTOR41507185. The joint Hamas-Fatah government did not last long. Within months the two sides were fighting again, eventually leading to a political split of the occupied territory, with Fatah controlling the West Bank and Hamas establishing a virtual one-party state in Gaza
^Dana Weiss and Ronen Shamir (2011) Corporate Accountability to Human Rights: The Case of the Gaza Strip. Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 24, 1, 155–183.
^Israel ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip when it withdrew from Gaza in 2005, so why does Hamas continue to fire rockets into Israel?Archived 14 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine. FAQ on the official Hamas website. Accessed November 2015. "This is one of the myths perpetuated by Israel's propaganda ... Israel re-deployed its military occupation forces and evacuated its illegal settlers outside the population centers in Gaza. BUT Israel effectively controls the sea, land and air spaces and border crossings that link the Gaza Strip to the outside world. According to the UN and human rights organizations, Israel still maintains its occupation of the Gaza Strip and subjects the 1.8 million Palestinians in this tiny strip to a horrendous siege and blockade that constitute a war crime under international law." Here, Hamas cites the view of the international community.
^Shany, Yuval (December 2005). "Faraway, so close: the legal status of Gaza after Israel's disengagement". Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law. 8: 369–383. doi:10.1017/S1389135905003697. ProQuest196888152.
^ abAbbas: Egypt Right to Create Buffer Zone on Gaza BorderArchived 20 August 2015 at the Wayback Machine. Jack Khoury, Haaretz, 1 December 2014 (premium). ″Abbas believed the destruction of the tunnels was the best solution. The Palestinian president said he had recommended previously the sealing or destruction of the tunnels by flooding them and then punishing the owners of the homes that contained entrances to the tunnels, including demolishing their homes.″
^Samira Shackle (14 October 2013). "Israel tightens its blockade of Gaza for 'security reasons'". Middle East Monitor. Archived from the original on 14 October 2013.:'Yet critics point out that it is not just military supplies that cannot enter Gaza, but basic construction materials, medical supplies, and food stuffs. The issue came to international attention in 2010, when a flotilla of activists attempted to break the blockade and carry humanitarian aid into Gaza. Nine were killed when the Israeli navy entered the flotilla. The incident shone a spotlight onto the blockade of Gaza. At one stage, prohibited materials included coriander, ginger, nutmeg and newspapers. A relaxation of the rules in June 2009 meant that processed hummus was allowed in, but not hummus with extras such as pine nuts or mushrooms. One of the biggest issues has been building materials. The strict restrictions on goods going into Gaza meant that it was impossible to start reconstruction work; it was therefore impossible to repair shattered windows to keep out the winter rain.'
^"What Will Israel Become?". The New York Times. 20 December 2014. Archived from the original on 8 July 2017. Roger Cohen: "The 140-square-mile area is little better than an open-air prison. As incubators for violent extremism go, it is hard to imagine a more effective setting than Gaza."
^'Israel Has Been Bitten by a Bat,'Archived 3 April 2015 at the Wayback MachineTruthdig 18 July 2014. Lawrence Weschler:'I'm tired, for example, of hearing about how vital and cosmopolitan and democratic are the streets and cafes and nightclubs of Tel Aviv. For the fact is that one simply can't sustain such cosmopolitan vitality 40 miles from a prison camp containing close to two million people: It's a contradiction in terms.'
^'Gaza is 'open-air prison',?Archived 31 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine. The National (Abu Dhabi), 12 March 2010. The Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Sir John Holmes
^"'Erdogan: Palestine an open-air prison,'". Ynet. 31 January 2009. Archived from the original on 24 December 2014. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: "Palestine today is an open-air prison. Hamas, as much as they tried, could not change the situation. Just imagine, you imprison the speaker of a country as well as some ministers of its government and members of its parliament. And then you expect them to sit obediently?"
^Zieve, Tamara (15 March 2013). "Australia MPs: Gaza is world's largest outdoor jail". Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 8 January 2015. "How could members, who wanted to get a balanced understanding of the issues facing Israel, Palestine and the Middle East, go to the other side of the planet and fail to visit Gaza, the world's largest outdoor prison?" Shoebridge asked.
^Ron Shlaifer, [1]Archived 2 November 2022 at the Wayback MachinePsychological Warfare [in the Arab–Israeli Conflict, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014 p.203 – Lauren Booth's expression
^Philip Slater, ‘A Message to Israel: Time to Stop Playing the Victim RoleArchived 24 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine,’ Huffington Post, 25 May 2011:'Calling Hamas the 'aggressor' is undignified. The Gaza strip is little more than a large Israeli concentration camp, in which Palestinians are attacked at will, starved of food, fuel, energy—even deprived of hospital supplies. They cannot come and go freely, and have to build tunnels to smuggle in the necessities of life.'
^The Hamas Enterprise and the Talibanization of Gaza, Khaled Al-Hroub, Al-Ayyam (Palestinian Authority), 11 October 2010. TranslationArchived 24 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine by the Middle East Research Institute, 22 October 2010.
^"World Report 2015: Israel/Palestine". World Report 2015: Israel/Palestine – Events of 2014. Human Rights Watch. 11 January 2015. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
Cobham, David P.; Kanafani, Noman (2004). The economics of Palestine: economic policy and institutional reform for a viable Palestinian state (Illustrated ed.). Routledge. ISBN978-0-415-32761-9.
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