Gaza Strip

The Gaza Strip (/ˈɡɑːzə/ ⓘ;[4] Arabic: قِطَاعُ غَزَّةَ Qiṭāʿ Ġazzah [qɪˈtˤɑːʕ ˈɣaz.za]), or simply Gaza, is a narrow piece of land on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, bordered by Israel to the east and north, and Egypt to the southwest. With a population of 2 million on some 365 sqkm, Gaza has a comparably high population density. It is one of the two Palestinian territories, along with the West Bank. Since 2007, Gaza has been governed as a de facto one-party state by Sunni Islamist political and military group Hamas.

The Gaza Strip initially emerged as an Egyptian-occupied territory after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Following the 1967 Six-Day War the territory came under Israeli military occupation until 2005. In the 1990s, as part of the Oslo Accords, the administration over most of the area was handed over to the Palestinian National Authority, alongside the existence of Israeli settlements in some areas, which were evacuated in 2005. Following Israel's disengagement, in 2006, Hamas won the last-held Palestinian legislative election and started administering Gaza; it took full control after a brief civil war the following year. Hamas has since brutally cracked down and executed opponents. In 2023, Hamas launched a major attack on Israel, beginning the Israel-Hamas war in which the Israel Defense Forces retaliated with an offensive into the Gaza Strip.

Quotes



 * From here, our people begin the march towards establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital
 * Mahmoud Abbas, Speech at the Gaza City harbour on the occasion of Jewish settler withdrawal (12 August 2005), quoted in BBC News, "Gaza boats mass to mark pullout"


 * Israel will not transfer Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza District to any foreign sovereign authority, [because] of the historic right of our nation to this land, [and] the needs of our national security, which demand a capability to defend our State and the lives of our citizens."
 * Menachem Begin, quoted in Avi Shlaim, [https://archive.org/details/ironwallisraelar00shla/page/356/mode/2up The Iron Wall (1999), p. 356


 * A lesson we ignore at our peril is that oppression undermines not only the rights, dignity, and lives of the oppressed but eventually the security of the oppressors as well. The apartheid system that’s been suffocating Palestinians for so long is now also undermining the safety of Israeli civilians.
 * Phyllis Bennis, We Need an Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza, Counterpunch, (20 October 2023)


 * I can understand the deep anger and despair of the Palestinian people. For decades you've been treated as pawns in the Middle East conflict. Your interests have been held hostage to a comprehensive peace agreement that never seems to come, as your lives get worse year by year. You deserve democracy and the rule of law. You deserve an open society and a thriving economy. You deserve a life of hope for your children. An end to occupation and a peaceful democratic Palestinian state may seem distant, but America and our partners throughout the world stand ready to help, help you make them possible as soon as possible. If liberty can blossom in the rocky soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions of men and women around the globe who are equally weary of poverty and oppression, equally entitled to the benefits of democratic government. I have a hope for the people of Muslim countries. Your commitments to morality, and learning, and tolerance led to great historical achievements. And those values are alive in the Islamic world today. You have a rich culture, and you share the aspirations of men and women in every culture. Prosperity and freedom and dignity are not just American hopes, or Western hopes. They are universal, human hopes. And even in the violence and turmoil of the Middle East, America believes those hopes have the power to transform lives and nations.
 * George W. Bush, Rose Garden Speech on Israel-Palestine Two-State Solution, delivered 24 June 2002,


 * Let us not today fling accusation at the murderers. What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived. We should demand his blood not from the Arabs of Gaza but from ourselves. . . . Let us make our reckoning today. We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. . . . Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit all around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood.
 * Moshe Dayan, quoted in The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World by Avi Shlaim, p 103


 * The eminent Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described Gaza as "the largest concentration camp ever to exist." ** Quoted by Norman Finkelstein in the postscript to the German edition of The Rise and Fall of Palestine


 * The destruction of media offices and the killing of a journalist in Gaza are extremely concerning. Journalists must be able to carry out their essential work, including in conflict zones, without fear of attack and harassment. They must be protected and respected... Even wars have rules. First and foremost, civilians must be protected... Indiscriminate attacks, and attacks against civilians and civilian property, are violations of the laws of war...
 * António Guterres, Secretary-General’s Remarks to the General Assembly Meeting on the Situation in the Middle East and Palestine, United Nations Secretary-General, Statements, (20 May 2021)


 * If there is a hell on earth, it is the lives of children in Gaza today. The destruction of media offices and the killing of a journalist in Gaza are extremely concerning. Journalists must be able to carry out their essential work, including in conflict zones, without fear of attack and harassment...Even wars have rules. First and foremost, civilians must be protected... Indiscriminate attacks, and attacks against civilians and civilian property, are violations of the laws of war...
 * António Guterres, Secretary-General’s Remarks to the General Assembly Meeting on the Situation in the Middle East and Palestine, United Nations Secretary-General, Statements, (20 May 2021)


 * Israeli forces’ repeated use of lethal force in the Gaza Strip since March 30, 2018, against Palestinian demonstrators who posed no imminent threat to life may amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli forces have killed more than 100 protesters in Gaza and wounded thousands with live ammunition... The killings... highlight the need for the International Criminal Court to open a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine. Third countries should impose targeted sanctions against officials responsible for ongoing serious human rights violations
 * Human Rights Watch Israel: Apparent War Crimes in Gaza (June 13, 2018)


 * Palestine is a state and the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction involving its cases, the ICC prosecutor ruled Thursday, which could pave the way for a war crimes investigation against Israel. A three-judge panel of the ICC Pretrial Chamber must now affirm the decision by Fatou Bensouda.  Israel has been accused of committing war crimes in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip... Under Bensouda’s 60-page decision, the ICC may exercise its jurisdiction in “territory” that “comprises the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.”
 * Israel could be prosecuted for war crimes with International Criminal Court ruling that Palestine is a state, Jewish Telegraphic Agency,  (30 April 2020)


 * While skepticism, critique, and simple questions have only multiplied in the wake of outrageous Zionist atrocity propaganda, one thing appears certain: that the Holocaust—which some believe has been used dishonestly as a “warning” to prevent so-called genocide for years—was now being evoked as a justification to conduct actual genocide on a race of people trapped within the Gaza Strip.
 * ‘Atrocity propaganda’ debunked following Israel’s war on Gaza, Justice Report, October 14 2023


 * Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water pump will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home.
 * Israel Katz (2023) cited in "Energy minister: No electricity or water to Gaza until abductees returned home" on The Times of Israel, 12 October 2023.


 * Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating. […] For Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians.
 * Charles Krauthammer, Column, January 2, 2009, "Moral clarity in Gaza" at jewishworldreview.com.


 * I want to speak directly to the residents of the Gaza Strip, and tell them: There is another way. We know how to protect ourselves from anyone who threatens us, but we also know how to provide employment, a livelihood and a life of dignity to those who wish to live by our side in peace. There is another way to live. The way of the Abraham Accords, of the Negev Summit, of innovation and prosperity, of regional development and joint projects. The choice is yours. Your future is in your hands.
 * Yair Lapid (2022) cited in "Prime Minister Yair Lapid speaks to Gazan civilians - opinion" on The Jerusalem Post, 22 August 2022.


 * This vicious circle will not be solved by power, not be solved by tanks, and not will be — nor will it be solved by troops, only by political agreement and, above all and first of all, lifting this criminal siege, for God’s sake, after 17 years. This siege, what it was about, to guarantee the security of Israel. So, what happened out of the siege except of the suffer of — unbelievable inhuman suffer of 2 million people? What did it contribute to the security of Israel, this siege? You see the outcome.
 * Israeli Journalist Gideon Levy: Israel Should Lift Siege & Call Off Plans for Ground Invasion of Gaza, DemocracyNow! (11 October 2023)


 * There are no innocent people in the Gaza Strip. Everyone has a connection to Hamas. Everyone receives a salary from Hamas. Those who are trying to challenge us at the border and breach it belong to Hamas’s military wing.
 * Avigdor Lieberman, As quoted in There are no innocents in Gaza,' says Israeli defense minister'' (April 8, 2018), '


 * The situation inside Gaza is dire. Not only is there no food, there is no water, electricity, or fuel. And that combination is not only catastrophic but can lead to more starvation and disease as well. We’ve got to get more trucks in.
 * Cindy McCain of World Food Programme Egypt-Gaza Rafah crossing opens, allowing 20 aid trucks amid Israeli siege (October 21, 2023)


 * The world saw Operation Cast Lead, where the United States-supplied F-16s, white phosphorus, depleted uranium, cluster bombs, DIME weapons, were rained down on the defenseless people of Gaza. And, of course, we wanted desperately to get in to take humanitarian relief supplies. And both times that I’ve tried to go with Free Gaza, they’ve been thwarted — we have been supported thwarted by the Israeli military.
 * Cynthia McKinney,Interview with Democracy Now! (2009)


 * I would like to see the children of Gaza have the coloring books and the crayons that we had on board with us. I would like to see the houses that have been destroyed rebuilt. I would like to see the lives rebuilt of the people of Gaza. And I would like to see the people of Palestine have, enjoy their human rights.
 * Cynthia McKinney, Interview with Democracy Now! (2009)


 * Israel, since its inception, has relied on external support, particularly from the Western world, for justification of its policies in Gaza and the . These relationships are contingent on many things, including values the West claims to hold dear like freedom, democracy, civil rights and equality. The prospect of a negotiated agreement based on two-states has allowed Israel to stave off the confrontation between the myth of these values and the reality on the ground. But as the notion of a two-state agreement fades firmly into history, the apartheid reality becomes impossible to ignore, and further episodes where Israel will confront masses of mobilized Palestinians demanding their rights will continue to highlight this contradiction.
 * Yousef Munayyer on the events of Land Day 2018, In Gaza, Israel Aims To Massacre Hope (2 April 2018), .


 * Palestinian and Syrian grievances against Israel were not rooted in israel's holding on to this or that territory. That's why they attacked us from the Golan, Judea and Samaria, and Gaza when those areas were in their hands. Their grievances were directed against Israel's very existence, in any territory.
 * Benjamin Netanyahu, in Bibi My Story (2022), p.256-257


 * This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.
 * Benjamin Netanyahu, Speaking to Likud members of the Knesset (March 2019), as cited in "Another Concept Implodes: Israel Can’t Be Managed by a Criminal Defendant", Haaretz (9 October 2023)


 * Four years ago, I stood in Cairo in front of an audience of young people -- politically, religiously, they must seem a world away. But the things they want, they’re not so different from what the young people here want.  They want the ability to make their own decisions and to get an education, get a good job; to worship God in their own way; to get married; to raise a family. The same is true of those young Palestinians that I met with this morning.  The same is true for young Palestinians who yearn for a better life in Gaza.  That's where peace begins -- not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people.  Not just in some carefully designed process, but in the daily connections -- that sense of empathy that takes place among those who live together in this land and in this sacred city of Jerusalem.
 * Barack Obama, Remarks of President Barack Obama To the People of Israel at Jerusalem International Convention Center in Jerusalem, Israel (21 March 2013)


 * Gaza, after 7,000 years of suffering, can emancipate itself from want.
 * Shimon Peres, 48th United Nations General Assembly Address, delivered 28 September 1993, New York, NY


 * Palestinians must accept that they can only achieve their goals through negotiation. That was the essence of the agreements made between Israelis and Palestinians in Madrid and again in Oslo in 1993. There is no other way but direct negotiations in an atmosphere of stability and nonviolence. At the same time, Palestinians must also be secure and in control of their individual lives and collective security. In the absence of peace, Israeli's occupation of the West Bank in Gaza has been the defining reality of Palestinian's lives there for over three decades, longer than most of the Palestinians living there have been alive. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians in the West Bank of Gaza and Gaza have grown up with checkpoints and raids and indignities. Too often they have seen their schools shattered and their parents humiliated. Palestinians need security, as well. Too many innocent Palestinians, including children, have been killed and wounded. This, too, must stop. The occupation hurts Palestinians.
 * Colin Powell, McConnell Center Address on U.S. Role in Arab-Israeli Conflict, delivered 19 November 2001


 * I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that won’t happen, and a solution must be found.
 * Yitzhak Rabin, To a delegation from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Jerusalem, September 1992.


 * In the past, I might have favored a cease-fire with Hamas during a conflict with Israel. But today it is clear to me that peace is not going to be possible now or in the future as long as Hamas remains intact and in control of Gaza. Hamas's power and ability to threaten Israel — and subject Gazan civilians to ever more rounds of violence — must end.
 * Israel is not alone in believing it must defeat Hamas. Over the past two weeks, when I talked to Arab officials throughout the region whom I have long known, every single one told me that Hamas must be destroyed in Gaza. They made clear that if Hamas is perceived as winning, it will validate the group’s ideology of rejection, give leverage and momentum to Iran and its collaborators and put their own governments on the defensive. But they said this in private. Their public postures have been quite different.
 * Dennis Ross, "I Might Have Once Favored a Cease-Fire With Hamas, but Not Now", The New York Times (October 27, 2023)


 * September 11th has a tragic resonance in the Middle East, too. On the 11th of September 1922, ignoring Arab outrage, the British government proclaimed a mandate in Palestine, a follow-up to the 1917 Balfour Declaration which imperial Britain issued, with its army massed outside the gates of Gaza. The Balfour Declaration promised European Zionists a national home for Jewish people. (At the time, the Empire on which the Sun Never Set was free to snatch and bequeath national homes like a school bully distributes marbles.)
 * Arundhati Roy, Come September Speech, Santa Fe, NM, (29 Sep 2002)


 * Hamas murdered at least 1,3000 Israelis on 7 October 2023 beginning the 2023 Israel–Hamas war.


 * The Arab enmity for Jews and the state of Israel allows for no peace process. The time for half measures has passed. Bulldozing houses of homicide bombers is useless. Instituting ongoing curfews in Arab-populated cities is useless. Roadblocks, touch fences, midnight negotiations and cease-fires are useless. [...] Here is the bottom line: If you believe that the Jewish state has a right to exist, then you must allow Israel to transfer the Palestinians and the Israeli-Arabs from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper. It's an ugly solution, but it is the only solution.
 * Ben Shapiro,, Shapiro has since retracted and apologized for this column.


 * I believe that we shouldn’t be supporting any form of aid towards countries that are killing people that are innocent. And you can claim, as many will claim, that this is about security and so forth, but I think America needs to be held responsible. I mean, me, as an American, I know and feel that when you see protesters, peaceful protesters, marching, if it’s in Gaza, all the way to even Africa and other parts of the world—I see it everywhere—that if it’s promoting, you know, the violation of people’s international human rights, if it’s promoting the lack of freedom of speech, the lack of freedom to assemble, which is our core—part of our core of who we are as Americans, then, yes, cutting off aid is a possibility for me, absolutely. I mean, we have to use our American aid and our partnership as leverage, to promote who we are. And we don’t do that by supporting those kinds of killings.
 * Rashida Tlaib, interview with Democracy Now (2018)


 * UN humanitarians expressed deep concern on Friday for all civilians in the Gaza Strip following Israel’s order for the entire population there to leave the north, amid ongoing airstrikes and a deepening humanitarian crisis. The development follows an announcement by UN Spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, just before midnight Eastern Standard Time on Thursday, that UN representatives in Gaza had been “informed by their liaison officers in the Israeli military” that everyone living north of Wadi Gaza should relocate to southern Gaza within 24 hours. Some 1.1 million people would be expected to leave northern Gaza, Mr. Dujarric said, adding that the same order applied to all UN staff and those sheltered in UN facilities, including schools, health centres and clinics.  The UN considers it “impossible” for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences and appeals for the order to be rescinded, Mr. Dujarric said.  Echoing that message, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) joined the call for Israel to rescind the relocation order, which amounted to a “death sentence” for many, said WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic.
 * Gaza: Nowhere to go, as humanitarian situation reaches ‘lethal low’, United Nations News (13 October 2023)


 * "The complete siege of Gaza coupled with unfeasible evacuation orders and forcible population transfers, is a violation of international humanitarian and criminal law. It is also unspeakably cruel,” the [United Nations] experts said.
 * United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Press Release, quoted in Gaza: UN experts decry bombing of hospitals and schools as crimes against humanity, call for prevention of genocide, (19 October 2023)


 * It has been four weeks waiting for this moment really to happen, and, I mean at some stage I wasn't sure this would happen, really but thank God, I am here.
 * Dr Abdelkader Hammad accrding to Gaza surgeon's 'big relief' on UK family reunion (BBC a few minutes ago)


 * The United States should have an equal and simultaneous support for both the legitimate security concerns of Israel, and the human rights, dignity and economic opportunities of the Palestinian people... I do not believe the settlements on the West Bank are legal. Also, I would rescind the president's affirmation of sovereignty of Israel over the Golan Heights. I understand the occupation of the Golan Heights, but only until there is a stable government in Syria with whom one can negotiate. According to international law, the occupation of a territory does not give the occupying country a right to annex it. Also, according to international law, the resources of the occupied territory are to be used for the good of those living there.  I also do not support the blockade of Gaza.
 * Marianne Williamson, Quoted in Candidates Answer CFR's Questions Marianne Williamson, Council on Foreign Relations, August 16, 2019


 * What SNCC taught me was that I needed to act in my own community. It took me some time to put all of this together but finally, eleven years ago, I went to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza for the first time. Based on what I saw with my own eyes and the anguish I felt in my own heart I became a Jewish activist against Israeli governmental policies of injustice and inequality.
 * Dorothy Zellner, Interview (2014)


 * Gaza's society is sensitive to its heritage, but the crushing that has been inflicted by the occupying forces over the past fifty years means that vital priorities like feeding, caring for, and educating the population have pushed cultural heritage aside as a luxury for wealthy countries.
 * Jean-Baptiste Humbert, quoted in Report on the Impact of the Recent War in 2023 on the Cultural Heritage in Gaza Strip - Palestine (2023)