The Gaza Stripscene of a new war with Israel Since Saturday, it is a Palestinian enclave ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas that suffers from conflict, poverty and blockades.
meager territory
Bordered to the north and east by Israeli territory, to the west by the Mediterranean and to the south by Egypt, the Gaza Strip is a narrow territory of 360 km2, 41 km long and 6 to 12 km wide.
More than two million Palestinians live overcrowded there, or almost 6,000 inhabitants per km², one of the highest population densities in the world.
More than 5,000 years of history
Thanks to the 1998 discovery of the Tell es-Sakan site, archaeologists can attest that a fortified Canaanite city was continuously occupied, from 3,200 to 2,000 BC, in the present-day Gaza Strip.
Gaza was subsequently successively under Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman, Arab and Christian rule.
In the 20th century, Gaza came under Egyptian administration in 1948, shortly after the proclamation of the State of Israel.
Israel annexed the Gaza Strip in 1967, at the end of the Six-Day War between Arabs and Israelis.
On September 12, 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip, which has been run since 2007 by Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist movement considered terrorist by Israel.
Blocking
In June 2006, Israel imposed a land, air and sea blockade on the enclave in retaliation for the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, who will be released in 2011.
Israel reinforces the blockade in June 2007, when Hamas seizes power in Gaza and expels the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas.
Since 2018, Egypt has kept the Rafah border post open most of the time, the only transit point outside Israel’s control.
Poverty
Devoid of natural resources, the Gaza Strip suffers from chronic water and fuel shortages.
Unemployment affects half of the population, including three quarters of young people.
More than dThirds of the population depend on humanitarian aid.
The same proportion lives below the poverty line.
Six wars in 15 years
At the end of 2008, Israel launched an air and then ground offensive to put an end to the rocket fire: 1,440 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.
In late 2012, the Israeli army carried out the targeted assassination of Hamas military leader Ahmad Jaabari.
Eight days of airstrikes leave 174 Palestinians dead. Six Israelis also die.
In July 2014, Israel launches Operation Protective Edge to stop rocket fire and destroy tunnels dug in the enclave.
The war left 2,251 dead on the Palestinian side, the vast majority civilians, and 74 dead on the Israeli side, almost all of them soldiers.
In May 2021, a new war in Gaza leaves 232 dead on the Palestinian side and 12 on the Israeli side in 11 days.
Two years later, in May 2023, 35 Palestinians, including Islamic Jihad leaders, were eliminated in five days of war.
Source: AFP
Source: Gestion
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