Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Monday that his forces are ready to launch a “land, sea and air assault” on the Gaza Strip and warned 1.1 million residents to evacuate the territory’s north.
The warning sparked concern from the international community, which warned that the Gaza Strip’s nearly two million residents have no way to escape and that, without access to food, water and electricity, they face an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
Here are some answers about the Gaza Strip and the current situation:
What is the Gaza Strip?
According to the United Nations definition, the Gaza Strip, together with the West Bank, is part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). This small spit of land, only 41 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide, borders Israel to the north and east, Egypt to the south, and is bordered to the west by the Mediterranean Sea.
Its population of 1.9 million makes the Gaza Strip one of the most densely populated places in the world. More than 50% of the population is under the age of 18 and the vast majority are Muslim. According to the United Nations, approximately 1.4 million people are officially refugees.
Initially, the Gaza Strip was part of the remaining Palestinian territories until it became an enclave in 1967, during the Israeli invasion. In 1990, management of the area was transferred to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli population left the area in 2005.
What is Hamas and how did it gain control of the Gaza Strip?
Hamas is an Islamic militant group and one of two Palestinian political parties. In 2006, he defeated the Fatah party in the elections to govern the Gaza Strip. Since then, Palestine has been governed by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and by Fatah (which formed the Palestinian Authority) in the West Bank, which has created a political divide among Palestinians.
While Fatah has renounced violence, Hamas is considered a terrorist group by several countries and organizations, including the United States and the European Union (despite disagreements among some countries). Some countries consider only the military wing of Hamas (called the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades) to be a terrorist group.
Iran is one of Hamas’s top backers, supporting the group and other Palestinian movements with an estimated 95 million euros a year, the US State Department said. Members of Hamas live in Turkey and Qatar, countries that also support the group and are accused of financing its activities.
The movement’s stated mission is “to resist the Zionist occupation, liberate the area, [permitir] the return of refugees and the fulfillment of the Palestinian national project,” according to the group’s own website.
“Hamas limits its resistance only to the Israeli occupation and does not fight with any party in the world. Hamas fights and opposes the Israelis not because they are Jews, but because they are occupiers,” the group said.
How is Gaza, the ‘largest open-air prison’ in the world, blocked?
In 2007, Israel imposed a land, air and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, which began in the 1990s and continues to this day. The only land exits from Gaza are the Rafah border crossing into Egypt and the Erez border crossing into Israel. Yasser Arafat Airport, in southern Gaza, was destroyed during the Second Intifiada (2000-2005). At sea, Israel limited the fishing zone to 11 kilometers off the coast of Gaza city (in the north of the territory) and to 28 kilometers in the south, banning the entry and exit of boats from the demarcated area.
The zebra crossings at Rafah and Erez have been closed since the Hamas attack on October 7. Even when open, the highly bureaucratic process to use the two passageways takes several hours and entry is generally denied, with rare exceptions, on both the Egyptian and Israeli sides. The two border countries also control and restrict the entry of goods by land.
The blockade of these two border crossings “destroyed Gaza’s economy, contributes to the fragmentation of the Palestinian people and is part of the crimes against humanity of ‘apartheid’ and Israel’s persecution of millions of Palestinians,” according to Human Rights Watch.
Israel and Egypt justify the blockade of the Gaza Strip to prevent the departure of Hamas members and the entry of weapons and other products that could be used by the group.
Without the ability to leave or enter the Gaza Strip or control the export of products, more than 80% of the millions of Palestinians in Gaza live below the poverty line with an average of 13 hours of electricity per day, the United Nations Agency said. United Nations Assistance for Palestinian Refugees (UNWRA). More than half a million people depend on food aid from UNWRA, present in eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of families also rely on humanitarian support to access drinking water and schools.
The increasing deterioration of living conditions in the area led Human Rights Watch to call Gaza the “largest open-air prison” in the world.
According to Israeli forces, Hamas controls several tunnels through which people and weapons are trafficked.
Does Israel have an obligation to help the Palestinians in Gaza?
Israel was accused of committing war crimes when it announced this week that it would cut off the supply of water, food and fuel for electricity to the Gaza Strip. Many supported the decision, saying Israel has no obligations to the people of Gaza, especially in the context of armed conflict.
However, the United Nations considers the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as occupied territory.
Under international law, including the Geneva Convention, Israel can control the entry of people and goods as an ‘occupying power’, but it also has certain obligations within the Gaza Strip.
“In this sense, International Humanitarian Law obliges Israel to ensure, within the limits of its capabilities, that the basic needs of the people of Gaza are met,” the International Red Cross (ICRC) said. “We must, among other things, ensure that Gaza is supplied with food, medical products and other essential goods that will allow its population to live in adequate conditions.”
Israel can restrict the access of people and goods to the occupied territory, but has an “unconditional obligation to treat the people of Gaza humanely in all circumstances in accordance with the principles of proportionality,” the Red Cross further said.
What led to the Hamas attack on October 7?
Between 2008 and 2020, 5,590 Palestinians and 251 Israelis were killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Before the October attacks, more than 200 Palestinians and 30 Israelis had been killed in clashes, military operations and other incidents in 2023, already considered one of the deadliest years in the region since 2005. The United Nations called the “worrying trend” revealed a “growing despair about the future”.
“The lack of progress towards a political horizon that addresses the deeper problems of the conflict has left a dangerous and volatile vacuum,” Tor Wennesland, United Nations envoy to the Middle East, said in August this year .
As aggravating factors, the United Nations cited the growth of illegal Israeli colonies on Palestinian territory, including the destruction of homes and “colonial violence,” as well as the “activities of Palestinian militias.”
After several attacks by Israeli forces on Palestinians on the grounds of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (a holy place for Muslims in Jerusalem where other religions are not allowed to enter), Hamas and the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah warned that they would launch a ‘fire hell’ . against Israel if the attacks on Al-Aqsa continued.
On October 7, Hamas militants invaded Israeli territory and announced the start of the ‘Al-Aqsa’ operation, killing and kidnapping hundreds of Israeli civilians.
Source: DN
