Okay: Now, Everything You Need to Know About Gaza

A Public Service of the Rapier
The Gaza Strip is a coastal strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea currently governed by Hamas. It borders Egypt on the south-west and Israel on the north and east. It is about 25 miles long, and between 4 and 7.5 miles wide, with a total area of 139 sqaure miles. The area is not recognized internationally as part of any sovereign country but is claimed by the Palestinian National Authority as part of the Palestinian territories. Since the June 2007 battle of Gaza, actual control of the area is in the hands of the Hamas de facto government.


In 1517 Gaza fell to the Ottomans and was part of the Ottoman Empire until the First World War. Starting in the early 19th century, Gaza was culturally dominated by neighboring Egypt. Though it was part of the Ottoman Empire, a large number of its residents were Egyptians who had fled political turmoil.

Following World War I, Gaza became part of the British Mandate of "Palestine" (today's Jordan, Gaza, Israel and "West Bank") was mandated to Great Britain under the authority of the League of Nations. In 1923, the British divided the "Palestine" portion of the Ottoman Empire into two administrative districts, a "Jewish" area west of the Jordan River (this area included Gaza and was called "Palestine"), and a Palestinian area to the east. The eastern territory was renamed Trans-Jordan (Trans-Jordan and would again be renamed "Jordan" in 1946).

Jews were present in Gaza until the 1929 Palestine riots, when Jews were forced to leave. British rule of Palestine ended with the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.




According to the terms of the 1947 United Nations partition plan, Gaza was to become part of a new Arab state. Following the dissolution of the British mandate of Palestine and 1947-1948 Civil War in Palestine, Israel declared its independence in May 1948. The Egyptian army invaded the area from the south, starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The Gaza Strip as it is known today was the product of the subsequent 1949 Armistice Agreements between Egypt and Israel.
Egypt occupied the Strip from 1949 (except for four months of Israeli occupation during the 1956 Suez Crisis) until 1967.



Towards the end of the 1948 war, an All-Palestine Government was proclaimed in Gaza City by the Arab League (a regional alliance of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen). It was conceived partly as an attempt to limit the influence of the British-created entity of "Transjordan" over the Palestinian issue. The government was not recognized by Transjordan or any non-Arab country. Egypt never annexed the Gaza Strip, but instead treated it as a controlled territory and administered it through a military governor.
Refugees from the area were never offered Egyptian citizenship.

During the Sinai campaign of November 1956, the Gaza Strip was overrun by Israeli troops. International pressure soon forced Israel to withdraw.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip again in June 1967 during the Six-Day War. The military occupation lasted for 27 years, until 1994. However, according to the Oslo Accords, even after relinquishing control, Israel retains control of air space, territorial waters, offshore maritime access, the population registry, entry of foreigners, imports and exports as well as the tax system.

During the period of Israeli occupation, Israel created a settlement bloc in the southwest corner of the Strip near the Egyptian border. In total Israel created 21 settlements, comprising some 20% of the total Gaza Strip territory. Besides ideological reasons for being there, these settlements also served Israel's security concerns. In March 1979 Israel and Egypt signed the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, but the final status of the Gaza Strip as with relations between Israel and Palestinians was not dealt with in the treaty. The treaty did settle the international border between Gaza Strip and Egypt. Egypt renounced all territorial claims to the region beyond the international border.

In 1987, and continuing through 1993, the First Intifada ("war of the stones") took place. This was a mass popular uprising against Israeli rule that quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In May 1994, a phased transfer of governmental authority to the Palestinians took place. Much of the Strip (except for the settlement blocs and military areas) came under Palestinian control. Israeli forces left Gaza City and other urban areas, leaving the new Palestinian Authority ("PA") to administer and police the Strip. The PA rule of the Gaza Strip and West Bank under leadership of Yasser Arafat suffered from serious mismanagement and corruption.

A Second Intifada broke out in September 2000. In February 2005, the Israeli government voted to implement a unilateral disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip. Under the plan, all Israeli settlements and military basesin the Gaza Strip (and four in the West Bank) were dismantled. However, Israel maintained it's control over the crossings in and out of Gaza.

In accordance with the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority took over the administrative authority of the Gaza Strip in 1994. In the Palestinian parliamentary elections held on January 25, 2006, the radical party Hamas("Islamic Resistance Movement") won 74 out of 132 total seats. When Hamas assumed power the next month, it refused to recognize international demands that it renounce violence and recognize Israel, and in April, several nations, including the United States and the collective nations of the European Union, responded by cutting off direct aid to the Palestinian government. The resulting political disorder and economic stagnation led to many Palestinians emigrating from the Gaza Strip.

In January 2007, fighting errupted between Hamas and Fatah ("Palestine Liberation Movement"), the center-left Palestinian party. In May 2007, new fighting broke out between the factions. In June 2007, the Palestinian Civil War between Hamas and Fatah intensified. Hamas routed Fatah after winning the democratic election. Hamas then proclaimed itself to be the legitimate government of Gaza.

Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas's government, operating from the West Bank of Jordan, won widespread international support, however. In late June 2008 Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia said that the West Bank-based Cabinet formed by Abbas was the sole legitimate Palestinian government, and Egypt moved its embassy from Gaza to the West Bank. Since then, the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip has faced international, diplomatic, and economic isolation.

Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt have pressed Abbas to start serious talks with Hamas. Abbas had always conditioned this on Hamas returning control of the Gaza Strip to his Palestinian Authority. Hamas was supported by Syria and Iran. Since taking control of Gaza, Hamas has continued to fire rockets from the Strip across the border into Israel. According to Israel, between the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip and the end of January 2008, 697 rockets and 822 mortar bombs were fired at Israeli towns.

In response, Israel targeted military targets and declared the Gaza Strip a hostile entity, to make it possible to cut fuel and electricity supplies. In January 2008 the situation escalated; Israel curtailed travel from Gaza, the entry of goods, and cut fuel supplies to the Strip, resulting in power shortages. This brought charges that Israel was inflicting collective punishment on the Gaza population, but Israel countered that Gaza had enough food and energy supplies for weeks. In the ensuing months, rocket attacks and military responses continued.

At the end of December 2008, Israeli F-16 strike fighters launched a series of airstrikes against targets in Gaza. Struck were militant bases, a mosque, various Hamas government buildings, and a science building in the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip. The attack was a response to Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel, which totaled over 3000 in 2008 and which intensified during the few weeks preceding the operation.