A short history of Gaza
attacked Israel, killing 1,300 people and taking dozens of hostages. Israel has responded with force: strikes on Gaza had killed around 1,400 Palestinians by October 12th. Residents of the strip, a 360-square-kilometre block of land wedged between Egypt, Israel and the Mediterranean, are no strangers to tragedy.
Since 2007 they have suffered a stifling blockade and a series of wars. How has the history of Gaza shaped its people? Palestine, which had been part of the Ottoman Empire for the better part of four centuries, was seized by the British in 1917, during the first world war. That year Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, pledging vague support for a Jewish “homeland" in Palestine.
After the war Palestine was administered by Britain, and Zionist immigration, which had begun in the late 19th century, increased. Tensions between Jewish and Arab residents rose and in 1936 the Arabs revolted. By 1939 their uprising had been suppressed—but Britain palmed off the problem to the United Nations, which voted to partition the land.
Britain soon withdrew. In 1948 the state of Israel was created. Five Arab countries immediately invaded and Israel triumphed in the nine-month war that followed.
About 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were uprooted. Many ended up in the two pockets of land retained by the Arabs: Gaza, controlled by Egypt, and the West Bank, administered by Jordan. Conditions in Gaza were dire: many people slept in barracks, schools and mosques.
Refugees in the strip were not allowed to enter Egypt, nor to return to Israel. They were trapped and stateless. In 1967, during a six-day war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israel seized Gaza and the West Bank.
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