Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the Gaza Strip has continued to be controlled by foreign entities. A look back at the eventful history of its occupation.
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Gaza has successively passed into the hands of the United Kingdom, Egypt, and Israel. At the end of the Second World War, Palestine was under the mandate of the English crown. The United Nations (UN) wishes to share this territory in order to allow Arab residents and Jewish communities to live together, who created Israel on May 14, 1948. But the Jewish state seized a larger territory than what had been granted to it.
Egyptian administration of Gaza before 38 years of Israeli occupation
200,000 Palestinians driven from their homes are taking refuge in the south, in this narrow strip of sand wedged between the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt, where 80,000 other Palestinians from there already reside. To counter Israel’s decision, Egyptian soldiers are stationed in the area, sent by this neighboring country which administers without annexing what becomes the current Gaza Strip.
Israel recovered this territory in 1967, during the Six-Day War. It was the beginning of 38 years of occupation and clashes between settlers and Gazans. After two uprisings called Intifadas – one in 1987 and the other in 2000 – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in office from 2001 to 2006, decided to disengage his troops. The 75,000 Jewish civilians who settled there were pushed out in 2005.
The rise of Hamas and the Israeli blockade
Inside Gaza, the Palestinian flag flies atop the summit again, but internal political forces disagree. The Palestinian Authority, led first by Yasser Arafat (from 1993 to 2004), then by Mahmoud Abbas (since 2005), is defeated in the 2006 legislative elections by Hamaswhich asserts its control militarily on the ground.
But this control is relative. Israel, considering Hamas as a terrorist organization, establishes a land, air and sea blockade. Since 2007 and until today, everything that enters or leaves Gaza is monitored, a list of prohibited products has been established, food is rationed… And the area is fenced, surrounded by a concrete wall on earth and underground, faithful to its image of an “open-air prison”.
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