Editor’s observe, November 9, 2023: This story has been up to date to replicate particulars of the present Israel-Hamas warfare. For all of Vox’s newest protection on Israel and Palestine, see our storystream.
Gaza is a densely populated strip of land that’s principally surrounded by Israel and peopled virtually completely by Palestinians. Israel’s navy occupied it from 1967 to 2005, when it unilaterally withdrew. It’s at the moment underneath Israeli blockade, and Israel is at warfare with Hamas, the militant group that governs the area, as of early October.
Egypt managed Gaza till the Six-Day Conflict in 1967, after which Israel occupied it (together with the West Financial institution). Till 2005, Israeli navy authorities managed Gaza in the identical means they management the West Financial institution, and Jews have been permitted to settle there. In 2005, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pulled out Israeli troops and settlers unilaterally.
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Gaza is ruled by the Islamist group Hamas, which was initially an Egyptian group, the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. In 1987 it grew to become Hamas, a militant “resistance” group towards Israel, and gained political energy in a 2006 election. Hamas’s takeover of Gaza following a battle with backers of the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Financial institution, prompted an Israeli blockade of the circulation of business items into Gaza, on the grounds that Hamas might use these items to make weapons for use towards Israel. Egypt, which borders Gaza on the south, helps that blockade partially as a result of reference to the Muslim Brotherhood. Israel has eased the blockade at sure factors over time, however the cutoff of fundamental provides like gas nonetheless does important humanitarian hurt by reducing off entry to electrical energy, meals, and drugs.
Hamas and different Gaza-based militants have fired 1000’s of rockets from the territory at Israeli targets. Israel has launched quite a lot of navy operations in Gaza, together with an air marketing campaign and floor invasion in late 2008 and early 2009, a serious bombing marketing campaign in 2012, and one other air and floor assault in the summertime of 2014.
The periodic, escalating cycles of violence between Hamas and Israel for the reason that latter’s withdrawal has strengthened Israeli hawks’ political place, as they’ve lengthy argued that any Palestinian state would find yourself serving as a launching pad for assaults on Israel.
In 2023, after Hamas and the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched a coordinated land, sea, and air assault towards Israel on October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities declared warfare on Hamas. That included what Israel referred to as a “full siege” — reducing off entry to electrical energy, meals, gas, water, and drugs — and started with a large air assault on Gaza earlier than a floor incursion into the territory.
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