Gaza City — The Gaza Strip, run by Hamas for the past 10 years, is a poverty-stricken and overcrowded Palestinian coastal enclave. Hamas is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
Cramped enclave
Situated on the Mediterranean coast, between Israel and Egypt, the Gaza Strip is home to around two million Palestinians.
They live in a cramped area of just 362 square km (140 square miles), making it one of the most densely populated territories on the planet.
After the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-1949 and the formation of the Jewish state of Israel, Gaza came under Egyptian administration, but was never annexed.
Israel seized the territory from Egypt during the June 1967 Six-Day War.
Shut-in
On September 12, 2005, Israel pulled out all of its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in a unilateral move which ended 38 years of occupation.
In the summer of 2006, following the capture of a soldier by militants from Hamas, Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza which was tightened a year later after the Hamas militants forcibly ousted troops loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.
45 percent unemployment
According to the World Bank, Gaza’s GDP losses are estimated at more than 50 percent.
The Gaza Strip has almost no industry, and it suffers from a chronic lack of water and fuel.
Unemployment stands at 45 percent and more than two thirds of the population depends on humanitarian aid.
Islamic Jihad
The radical Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad is the enclave’s second biggest force after Hamas.
Founded early in the 1980s in the wake of the revolution in Iran, a close ally and ideological inspiration, it is devoted to armed action.
In May, Islamic Jihad rejected Hamas’s new policy of somewhat easing its stand on Israel and accepting the establishment of a Palestinian state limited to the 1967 borders. — AP
