A brief history of Gaza's 75 years of woe
Also Read: Israel-Hamas War LIVE Updates: Palestinians struggle for safety as Israel pounds sealed-off Gaza Strip Here are some of the major milestones in its recent history. 1948 - End of British rule As British colonial rule came to an end in Palestine in the late 1940s, violence intensified between Jews and Arabs, culminating in war between the newly created State of Israel and its Arab neighbors in May 1948. Tens of thousands of Palestinians took refuge in Gaza after fleeing or being driven from their homes.
The invading Egyptian army had seized a narrow coastal strip 25 miles (40 km) long, which ran from the Sinai to just south of Ashkelon. The influx of refugees saw Gaza's population triple to around 200,000. 1950s & 1960s - Egyptian military rule Egypt held the Gaza Strip for two decades under a military governor, allowing Palestinians to work and study in Egypt.
Armed Palestinian "fedayeen," many of them refugees, mounted attacks into Israel, drawing reprisals. The United Nations set up a refugee agency, UNRWA, which today provides services for 1.6 million registered Palestine refugees in Gaza, as well as for Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank. Also Read: Markets take U-turn on hopes of localized Israel-Hamas war 1967 - War and Israeli military occupation Israel captured the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war.
An Israeli census that year put Gaza's population at 394,000, at least 60% of them refugees. With the Egyptians gone, many Gazan workers took jobs in the agriculture, construction and services industries inside Israel, to which they could gain easy access at that time. Israeli troops remained to administer the territory and to guard the settlements that Israel built in the
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