Why is Gaza so central to the Palestinian struggle?
First Intifada in the Gaza Strip, 1987
Anne Irfan writes in +972 0n 2 January 2024:
More than half a century after beginning its occupation of the Gaza Strip, there are mounting signs that Israel is using its current military offensive to remake the territory completely.
On October 30, +972 published an official document from Israel’s Intelligence Ministry recommending the full-scale expulsion of all Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert. After reports of the Israeli government lobbying for Egypt to accept large numbers of Gaza’s population, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed in a Likud party meeting that he was actively seeking to “transfer” Palestinians out of the Strip. Calls for mass expulsion, which were on the rise on the Israeli right even before October 7, have become increasingly acceptable in mainstream Israeli discourse.
Attacks on Gaza’s infrastructure and civilian population appear to corroborate such plans. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has stated that for the first time since its creation 74 years ago, the agency is unable to fulfill its mandate in Gaza. Some commentators are contending that Israel’s actions in Gaza now comprise domicide — the deliberate and mass destruction of homes in order to make an area uninhabitable.
The Palestinian death toll since October 7 has already exceeded the total numbers killed by all previous Israeli operations in the Strip this century. At the time of writing, Israeli forces have killed over 21,000 Palestinians in Gaza, 70 percent of whom are women and children; more than 51,000 people have been injured; and nearly 1.9 million, the vast majority of the Strip’s population, have been displaced.
While defending its actions in Gaza as necessary and denying accusations of war crimes, the Israeli government is describing its war in existential terms. Hamas’ raid on October 7 was one of the deadliest attacks on Israel in the state’s history. For the first time since 1948, Israeli forces temporarily lost control of territory within the Green Line, as Hamas killed more than 1,200 Israelis, injured more than 5,000, and kidnapped about 240 people, the majority of them civilians. The impact on the Israeli psyche, and the resulting collective trauma, has been profound.
Capitalizing on such feelings, the Israeli government, with the wide support of the public, has framed the attack on Gaza as a battle for survival. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has said “it’s either them or us,” and described the air-and-ground assault as “a war for Israel’s existence as a prosperous Jewish state in the Middle East.” Netanyahu has dubbed it “the second war of independence.”
Yet these bombastic statements jar with the fact that Gaza, at least on the surface, appears as little more than a tiny speck on the globe. How has such a small piece of territory — comprising less than 1.5 percent of historic Palestine, and smaller than most U.S. cities — become the focal point of a major national, regional, and global struggle?
To anyone familiar with the history of the Gaza Strip, this state of affairs is hardly surprising. In fact, over the last 75 years, Gaza has continually been at the epicenter of Palestinian-Israeli history. All the major themes of the Palestinian struggle — dispossession, occupation, uprising, autonomy, and militancy — are encapsulated in this coastal enclave. Tracing the Strip’s history through these milestones can therefore illuminate the present moment and help explain the background to the current crisis.