CNN –
After the Palestinian militant group’s brutal attacks on October 7 that killed 1,400 people, Israel is preparing for the next phase of its war against Hamas.
After a week of unprecedented airstrikes on the Gaza Strip that killed at least 2,450 people, Israel is massing troops and military equipment along its border with the Hamas-controlled enclave and has warned around 1.1 million people in the northern half of the strip to do so United Nations evacuate information.
As Israel prepares for a ground offensive in Gaza, here’s what you need to know about the 140-square-mile enclave – one of the most densely populated areas on earth.
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Gaza is a narrow strip of land, only about 25 miles long and 11 miles wide – just over twice the size of Washington DC.
To the west lies the Mediterranean, to the north and east is Israel and to the south is Egypt.
It is one of two Palestinian territories, the other being the larger Israeli-occupied territory West Bank, which borders Jordan.
Around 2 million people live in the 140 square mile area. According to the World Health Organization, the overwhelming majority of people are young, with 50% of the population under the age of 18.
According to the CIA World Factbook, almost all of Gaza’s residents – 98-99% – are Muslim, with most of the remainder Christian.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which assists Palestinians, more than one million Gazans are refugees and there are eight recognized Palestinian refugee camps.
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Gaza has been inhabited for thousands of years and has served many different functions: an Egyptian base, a royal city for the Philistines, and the place where the Hebrew Samson, betrayed by Delilah, met his death.
It was part of the Ottoman Empire for most of the 16th to early 20th centuries until Britain took control of the Gaza area after World War I.
The most recent battle for the country began at the end of World War II, when Jews fleeing persecution traveled from Europe to seek refuge after the horrors of the Holocaust.
In 1947, the United Nations created a plan to divide the then British Mandate of Palestine into two countries, one for Jews and one for Arab people. David Ben Gurion, the founder of Israel, announced the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were displaced, and most were denied return.
After Israel declared its independence, Egypt attacked Israel through the Gaza Strip. Israel won, but Gaza remained under Egyptian control and the region experienced an influx of Palestinian refugees from Israel. Many were unable to emigrate to Egypt and were not allowed to return to their former home in Israel. They lived in extreme poverty.
In 1967 war broke out between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. During the conflict that became known as the Six-Day War, Israel captured Gaza and held it for nearly 40 years until withdrawing its troops and settlers in 2005.
Since then, there have been regular hostilities between Israel and Palestinian groups, including Hamas.
In 2006, Hamas won a landslide victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections – the last elections held in Gaza.
Hamas is an Islamist organization with a military wing that was founded in 1987 and grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group founded in Egypt in the late 1920s.
The group views Israel as an illegitimate state and an occupying power in the Gaza Strip. Unlike other Palestinian groups such as the Palestinian Authority, Hamas refuses to cooperate with Israel.
The group has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Israel over the years and has been designated a terrorist organization by countries including the United States, the European Union and Israel. The last war between Hamas and Israel took place in 2021, it lasted 11 days and killed at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.
One of the group’s largest donors is Iran, according to the U.S. State Department, which stated in a 2021 report that Iran provides about $100 million annually to Hamas and other “Palestinian terrorist groups.” The group also receives weapons and training from Iran, as well as some funds raised in Arab Gulf states, the State Department said.
Despite Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, it has maintained tight control over the area through a land, air and sea blockade since 2007. For almost 17 years, Gaza has been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world, with severe restrictions on the movement of goods and people.
The blockade was heavily criticized by international bodies, including the United Nations. A 2022 report said the restrictions had had a “significant impact” on living conditions in Gaza and had “weakened Gaza’s economy, leading to high unemployment, food insecurity and aid dependency.” .”
Israel has said the blockade is crucial to protecting its citizens from Hamas.
“Israel feared that without a blockade, Hamas would be able to smuggle light weapons and arm itself,” said Bilal Saab, senior fellow and founding director of the Defense and Security Program at the Middle East Institute.
However, he told CNN, “given the huge tunneling infrastructure the organization has built over the years, it honestly hasn’t done a very good job.”
Even before the Hamas attacks and Israeli retaliation against Gaza, living conditions in the enclave were terrible.
Human Rights Watch has described the area as an “open-air prison” – people in Gaza have limited access to health care, education and economic opportunities.
According to UN data from 2022, the unemployment rate is among the highest in the world. Almost half of the population is unemployed. More than 80% live in poverty. “For at least the last decade and a half, the socio-economic situation in Gaza has steadily deteriorated,” UNRWA said in August.
“Beyond the numbers, mental health professionals in Gaza describe a crisis that remains invisible,” said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization that focuses on Palestinian freedom of movement.
There is still hope, Hary told CNN: “Despite these terrible statistics, Gaza also has eight universities and several other colleges, a small but hard-working manufacturing industry, entrepreneurs in various fields, and innovative and resilient farmers.”
But conditions have deteriorated exponentially since Israel declared a “full siege” of the enclave in retaliation for Hamas attacks, withholding vital supplies of food, fuel and water.
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Life for the 1.1 million Gazans living in the enclave’s north became even more dangerous on Friday as Israel urged them to evacuate south, prompting aid workers to warn of a “complete catastrophe.”
The UN World Food Program warned on Sunday that it was “running out of supplies” to help the people of Gaza. Aid flights have arrived near the Rafah crossing on Gaza’s southern border in Egypt, but have not yet made it to the enclave.
Meanwhile, the death toll continues to rise. This week’s bombing of the enclave killed more people than during the six-week Israel-Hamas war in 2014.