Introduction
The Gaza Strip, a narrow piece of land located along the Mediterranean coast, has a rich history and ongoing challenges. It has been a focal point of conflict, humanitarian issues, and political struggles for decades.After rule by the Ottoman Empire ended there in World War I (1914–18), the Gaza area became part of the League of Nations mandate of Palestine under British rule. Before this mandate ended, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) in November 1947 accepted a plan for the Arab-Jewish partition of Palestine under which the town of Gaza and an area of surrounding territory were to be allotted to the Arabs.
The British mandate ended on May 15, 1948, and on that same day the first Arab-Israeli war began. Egyptian forces soon entered the town of Gaza, which became the headquarters of the Egyptian expeditionary force in Palestine.
What is the problem in the Gaza Strip?
Israel immediately launched attacks on Gaza. Since then, more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed. Israel also placed Gaza under hermetic closure—blocking access to food, water, fuel, electricity, medical supplies, and other goods. As a result, people are dying of starvation and disease
Gaza Strip lockdown
In autumn 2007, Israel declared the Gaza Strip under Hamas a hostile entity and approved a series of sanctions that included power cuts, heavily restricted imports, and border closures. In January 2008, facing sustained rocket assaults into its southern settlements, Israel broadened its sanctions, completely sealing its border with the Gaza Strip and temporarily preventing fuel imports. Later that month, after nearly a week of the intensified Israeli blockade, Hamas’s forces demolished portions of the barrier along the Gaza Strip–Egypt border (closed from Hamas’s mid-2007 takeover until 2011), opening gaps through which, according to some estimates, hundreds of thousands of Gazans passed into Egypt to purchase food, fuel, and goods unavailable under the blockade.
In the years after the Israeli blockade on Gaza was instated, an organization known as the Free Gaza Movement made a number of maritime efforts to breach it. The first such mission—which consisted of a pair of vessels bearing medical supplies and some 45 activists—was permitted to reach Gaza in August 2008, and four missions in subsequent months were also successful.
Gaza Strip in maps How a year of war has drastically changed life in the territory
It is one year since Israel responded to Hamas’s unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023 by bombing and invading the coastal Palestinian territory of Gaza.Nearly two-thirds of the population was in poverty, according to the World Bank, and thousands lived in UN-run refugee camps, but it also had hospitals, schools, and shops.Asdaa City was one of Gaza’s biggest amusement parks and offered respite and fun to the two million people—nearly half of them children—who live in the Strip, which is less than a quarter of the size of Greater London.
Images of the park in Khan Younis captured before Israel’s invasion and those taken in recent months offer a stark illustration of how a year of conflict has upended Gaza and the lives of those who live there.Rides have fallen into disrepair, there’s no power to operate them, and thousands of tents have been erected across the site to house families forced to flee there.After the 7 October attacks, in which Hamas gunmen killed about 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and took 251 more back to Gaza as hostages, Israel began an intense bombing campaign focused on northern Gaza—where it said Hamas fighters were hiding among the civilian population.
Traumatic injury mortality in the Gaza Strip from Oct 7, 2023, to June 30, 2024 a capture–recapture analysis
Background: Accurate mortality estimates help quantify and memorialise the impact of war. We used multiple data sources to estimate deaths due to traumatic injury in the Gaza Strip between Oct 7, 2023, and June 30, 2024.
Methods: We used a three-list capture–recapture analysis using data from Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) hospital lists, an MoH online survey, and social media obituaries. After imputing missing values, we fitted alternative generalised linear models to the three lists’ overlap structure, with each model representing different possible dependencies among lists and including covariates predictive of the probability of being listed; we averaged the models to estimate the true number of deaths in the analysis period (Oct 7, 2023, to June 30, 2024). Resulting annualised age-specific and sex-specific mortality rates were compared with mortality in 2022.
Interpretation: Our findings show an exceptionally high mortality rate in the Gaza Strip during the period studied. These results underscore the urgent need for interventions to prevent further loss of life and illuminate important patterns in the conduct of the war.
Conclusion
The war concluded with an Israeli victory, with both sides suffering tremendous casualties. Following the end of the war, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 338, which confirmed the land-for-peace principle established in Resolution 242, initiating the Middle East peace process.The war came to an end with the signing of the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and each of its Arab neighbours. The status of Jewish citizens in Arab states worsened during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war.
FAQS
Who controls the Gaza Strip?
The Gaza Strip has been under the de facto governing authority of the Islamic Resistance Movement since 2007 and has faced years of conflict, poverty, and humanitarian.
What is special about the Gaza Strip?
Gaza Strip, a territory occupying 140 square miles along the Mediterranean Sea just northeast of the Sinai Peninsula. The Gaza Strip is unusual in being a densely settled area not recognized as a de jure part of any extant country.
Who are the owners of the Gaza Strip?
The territory has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. De facto administered by Hamas since 14 June 2007, with an ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip conducted by the IDF since 27 October 2023.
