Gaza Strip

Due to its location on the Mediterranean Sea, near the crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe, the Gaza Strip has experienced much of the ebb and flow of Near Eastern political history. Like many other territories in the area, it has a long history of occupation by foreign powers. In ancient times, the city of Gaza served as the residence of the Egyptian governor of the area (then known as Canaan). In the 13th century BC it was taken over by the Philistines, from whom the name Palestine originated. The Philistines created a coastal power base with Gaza city as its principal center. The Gaza area changed hands many times in the next 2000 years, but it never achieved the importance of areas farther north along the coast, in the interior, or in Egypt. The region served as a battlefield during World War I (1914-1918), when the British forced the Ottomans from the area. The war was followed by a period of British rule (1917-1948), during which little was done to develop the region. According to the terms of the 1947 United Nations (UN) partition plan for Palestine, the Gaza area was to become part of a new Palestinian Arab state. However, the Arabs rejected the UN proposal. When Israel declared its independence in May 1948, the Egyptian army attacked Israel from the south in what became known as the first Arab-Israeli War. Although Israel eventually repulsed the attack, pressure from the British to reach a cease-fire agreement prevented Israel from driving Egypt's defeated forces from the region. As a result of heavy fighting, the area surrounding the town of Gaza, then under Arab occupation, was reduced to a narrow strip, referred to thereafter as the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip came under Egyptian control, and its population increased sharply as Palestinian refugees fled the fighting in southern Israel. Economic development in the Gaza Strip was limited under Egyptian rule, and the region suffered the burden of absorbing its new refugee population. Palestinian access to Egypt was restricted, and much of the region's largely unskilled workforce was dependent on the United Nations Relief Works Administration (UNRWA); which built and maintained the local refugee camps. Egypt did not extend citizenship to the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, who were therefore without any national citizenship. In 1956 Israel conquered the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Egypt's actions in nationalizing the Suez Canal and closing off shipping routes to Israel. But Israel relinquished the territory soon afterward under international pressure. During the next decade, Egypt used the Gaza Strip as a staging area for terrorist attacks against Israel. This contributed to the outbreak of the Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. During the 1970s and 1980s the Israeli government appropriated land to build a number of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip to strengthen their presence. Resentment stemming from Israeli occupation, a weak economy, and a large refugee population made the region a center for Palestinian activism and political unrest. Riots, demonstrations, and violent confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians developed into a Palestinian uprising, or intifada, which began in the Gaza Strip in 1987 and spread quickly to the West Bank. In September 1993 Israeli and PLO leaders signed a peace agreement calling for limited Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. Under the agreement, the Palestinian Authority manages Palestinian affairs in the Gaza Strip, while Israel maintains control over Israeli settlements, foreign policy, and armed forces. By late May 1994 most of Israel's armed forces had withdrawn from the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority had assumed administrative control. Implementation of Palestinian self-rule reduced the violence in the Gaza Strip for several months. However, in November 1994 clashes occurred between Palestinian police and members of the Islamic fundamentalist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who oppose the PLO-sponsored peace process. In early 1995 these factions claimed responsibility for a number of suicide bombings and other terrorist acts against Jews in Israel and the Gaza Strip. The increased tension and violence challenged the peace process and took a toll on the economy of the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli government retaliated by shutting its borders to thousands of Gazans employed in Israel. In September 1995 Israel and the Palestinian Authority, led by Yasir Arafat, signed a second peace agreement providing for Palestinian elections and extending limited self-rule to almost all Palestinian towns and refugee camps in the West Bank. In the elections, held in January 1996 in Palestinian areas of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Arafat was voted president of the Palestinian Authority by a large majority, and an 88-member Palestinian Council was also elected. Hamas and other Islamic fundamentalist groups boycotted the elections. The council, which has both legislative and executive powers, met for the first time in Gaza city in March 1996. As of June 1996 Israel and the Palestinian Authority had yet to resolve further transfers of power, including whether the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian areas would become a sovereign state.