THE GAZA STRIP: AN ISRAELI INVENTION

Israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pappé expounds in this video clip on the history of Gaza, a melting pot of culture, commerce and religion.

Gaza City became prominent because of an ancient coastal trade route—the Via Maris—connecting modern-day Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Turkey.

In 1948, settler-colonial forces, backed by the United Kingdom, displaced 750,000 Palestinians the day after the state of Israel was established. Palestinians call that event the 'Nakba' ('catastrophe' in Arabic). While neighbouring countries welcomed Palestinian refugees, Egypt closed its borders. That forced the newly established Israeli state to give back 2 per cent of historic Palestine, dubbing the 41-kilometre enclave the 'Gaza Strip.'

Israel has now turned the Gaza Strip into the world's biggest open-air prison, blockading more than 2 million Palestinians since 2007 by cutting power, restricting food intake and imports, and arbitrarily closing borders. Israel declared a total blockade after the 7 October escalation, cutting water, electricity and food supplies to the enclave in violation of the Geneva Conventions that prohibit collective punishment of civilian populations.

Since 7 October, Israeli forces have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened a ground invasion of the strip's southern city of Rafah, where 1.5 million Palestinians have taken refuge on the border with Egypt.