Tourist trip to the gas sector. Gaza Strip: History of the Occupation of the Palestinian Territory

The Gaza Strip is approximately 50 km long and 6 to 12 km wide. The total area is about 360 square kilometers.

Cities

Abasan
Beit Hanoun (Arabic: بيت حانون)
Gaza (Aza) (Arabic غزة) (Hebrew עזה)
Deir el-Balah (Deir el-Balah, Deir al-Balah, Deir al-Balah)
Rafah (Rafah) (Hebrew רפיח)
Khan Younes (Khan Younis)
Jabaliya (Arabic: جباليا)

Demographic statistics

The territory of 360 km² is home to 1.6 million people. The population density (3.9 thousand people per 1 sq. Km) is approximately the same as in Berlin (Germany).

Fertility in the Gaza Strip is one of the highest in the world, with more than half of the population under 15, and the population doubles every 20-25 years. The majority of the population are Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Israeli experts believe that there is reason to doubt the truth of these data, since all indicators are based on reports from the Palestinian Authority, which "does not provide any possibility of serious verification of these data."

There is no consensus among Israeli demographers on this matter: Professor A. Sofer believes that it is necessary to operate with these data, since there are no others, but Dr. J. Etinger and Dr. B. Zimmerman (AIDRG Institute) believe (based on comparison with data on emigration, hospital data on fertility, etc.) that the figures are overestimated by at least a third.

Legal status

In 1947, with the division of the Mandatory Lands, the territory of Gaza was assigned to the Arab state.

According to the representative of the UN Secretary General: "the official status of the" occupied territory "of the Gaza Strip can only be changed by a decision of the UN Security Council, another UN representative said that even after the withdrawal of Israeli troops," the UN continues to consider the Gaza Strip as an occupied territory. " Prior to these statements, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon refrained from answering a question about the status of the Gaza Strip after the Israeli evacuation, saying that he was not authorized to answer it. The US position on the status of Gaza remains unclear, but the website of the US Department of State defines the Gaza Strip as an occupied territory.

In January 2006, an Islamist party won the local elections in the sector. radical movement Hamas. After a series of sweeps and skirmishes with rival factions, Hamas completely seized power - state institutions The Palestinian Authority and its security forces have ceased operations in the sector since July 2007 following a coup by Hamas, although formally the Gaza Strip continues to be part of the Palestinian Authority and is subordinate to its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas. But in reality we are talking about the existence of two separate enclaves.

In this regard, on September 19, 2007, Israel and Egypt imposed an economic blockade on the sector, the main purpose of which is to prevent the supply of weapons to the territory of Gaza, which was weakened by the decision of the Israeli government on June 20, 2010, but has not been terminated.

History

For the history of the Gaza region before 1948 see the history of the Gaza City.

Gaza controlled by the Arab Republic of Egypt (1948-1967)

The Camp David Treaty indicates that Israeli troops will leave the territory of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Jordan and in these territories a democratically elected autonomous Palestinian administration will be created, and a maximum of five years after this event, through negotiations, the final status of these territories was to be determined. However, the process spelled out in the Camp David Accords was started only 14 years later, in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Accords, and has not been completed until now.

Following the signing of the agreements, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat said in his speech to Parliament (Mordel):

Before the war for the rights of the Palestinian people, Egypt was a prosperous country in the Arab world. Now we are a poverty-stricken country, and the Palestinians are demanding that we once again fight for them to the last Egyptian soldier.

It should be noted that after the Oslo Accords, the economic situation in the Gaza Strip deteriorated: unemployment in the Palestinian territories was less than 5 percent in the late 1980s and 20 percent by the mid-1990s, and the territories' gross national product fell by 36 percent between 1992 and 1996 year. According to the Arabs, this happened as a result of high population growth due to the birth rate and a decrease economic ties with Israel. According to another view, this is due to the fact that the Gaza authorities are unwilling to take care of the needs of the population.

Blockade of the Gaza Strip

Rise of extremism

Gunnar Heinzon, head of the Lemkin Institute at the University of Bremen in the Wall Street Journal, writes:

The vast majority of the population does not feel the need to do anything in order to "raise" their offspring. Most of the children are fed, clothed, vaccinated and in school thanks to the UN UNRWA. UNRWA is driving the Palestinian issue into a dead end by classifying Palestinians as “refugees” - not only those who have been forced to flee their homes, but also all their offspring.
UNRWA is generously funded by the United States (31 percent) and the European Union (about 50 percent) - and only 7 percent of these funds come from Muslim sources. Thanks to this generosity of the West, almost the entire population of Gaza lives in dependence, at a rather low, but stable level. One of the results of this unlimited philanthropy is an endless demographic boom.
Between 1950 and 2008, the population of Gaza grew from 240,000 to 1.5 million. The West, in fact, has created a new Middle Eastern people in Gaza, which, if the existing trends continue, will reach three million in 2040. The West pays for food, schools, medical care and housing, while Muslim countries help with weapons. Unconstrained by the hassle of making a living, young people have plenty of time to dig tunnels, smuggle weapons, assemble missiles and fire.

Gunnar Hainzon believes that the popularity of radical and extremist-minded political movements in Gaza is largely due to the youth of the sector's population.

It should be noted that high fertility is typical not only for the Gaza Strip, but also for other developing countries, which is associated with the demographic transition. Gunnar Hainzon describes the Gaza Strip as a classic case of his theory that a surplus of youth leads to increased radicalism, war and terrorism.

Shelling of Israel from Gaza

In July 2006, in response to the shelling and abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas militants, the Israeli army launched an unprecedented military operation "Summer Rains" to destroy the militants of the Hamas terrorist organizations, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and others.

In December 2006, in the Gaza Strip, an attempt was made on the life of Hamas Prime Minister of Palestine Ismail Haniya by Fatah activists.

In February 2007, an agreement was reached between the leaders of Fatah and Hamas and a coalition government was briefly created.

The international community has once again demanded that the new PA government recognize Israel, disarm the militants and end the violence. Trilateral negotiations between the United States, the Palestinian Authority and Israel ended in vain.

After the seizure of power by Hamas

In May - June 2007, Hamas tried to remove from power the former police officers who did not obey the Minister of Internal Affairs - supporters of Fatah, who at first turned out to be subordinate to the government of Fatah - Hamas, and then refused to resign from public service... In response, on June 14, Palestinian Authority President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas announced the dissolution of the government, introduced a state of emergency on the territory of the autonomy and took full power into his own hands. As a result of the outbreak of a bloody civil war for power, Hamas retained its positions only in the Gaza Strip, while in the West Bank of the r. Jordan's power was retained by the supporters of Mahmoud Abbas. Mahmoud Abbas created the r. Jordan is the new government and has called Hamas militants "terrorists." Thus, Palestine split into two hostile entities: Hamas ( Gaza Strip) and Fatah (West Bank).

Breakthrough of the fence on the border with Egypt

After another wave of shelling on Israeli territory, by order of the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on January 20, 2008, the supply of electricity, food and fuel to the Gaza Strip was temporarily stopped, which caused a wave of protests around the world. But already on January 22 they were resumed.

On January 23, 2008, after several months of preliminary preparation, during which the supports of the border fence were weakened, Hamas destroyed several sections of the border fence separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt near the city of Rafah. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans have crossed the border into Egypt, where prices for food and other goods are lower. Due to a three-day cessation of Israel's supply of electricity, fuel and a number of goods, Egyptian President Husni Mubarak was forced to order the Egyptian border guards to let Palestinians into Egypt, but at the same time to check that they did not bring weapons with them. Several armed infiltrators were arrested by the Egyptian authorities and then released.

Egypt's first attempts to close the border met with fierce resistance from Hamas militants, who carried out a series of explosions in the border area, and a few days later entered into a firefight with border guards. But after 12 days, the border was restored.

The breach of the fence also led to the infiltration of several Palestinian militants into the territory of Sinai, and then into Israel, where they carried out a terrorist attack in Dimona on 1 February, in which one Israeli woman was killed and 23 others were wounded.

The internal political situation in the Gaza Strip remained extremely volatile. The explosiveness of the situation was exacerbated by the fact of the daily smuggling of weapons from Egypt through the network of underground tunnels on the border with Egypt, as well as one of the highest levels of population density and unemployment in the world. According to a number of both Israeli and Palestinian observers, this has led to the transformation of the Gaza Strip into an enclave of anarchy and Terrorism.

Truce between Hamas and Israel June-December 2008

In June 2008, a half-year truce was signed between Israel and Hamas. However, it lasted only until the beginning of November 2008. The parties accused each other of breaking the truce. Immediately after the end of the ceasefire, intensified rocket attacks on Israeli territory resumed.

Operation Cast Lead and its aftermath

On December 27, 2008, Israel launched a large-scale military operation "Cast Lead" in the Gaza Strip, the goal of which was to destroy the military infrastructure of Hamas and prevent eight years of rocket attacks on Israeli territory. ... The decision to launch a large-scale operation was made by the Israeli government after dozens of unguided rockets were fired at Izril from the Gaza Strip.

The operation resulted in hundreds of casualties among the Palestinian population (overwhelmingly militants), massive destruction of infrastructure, industry and the destruction of thousands of homes in the sector. According to human rights organizations, civilians were often targeted by Israeli shelling, although a careful analysis of casualty statistics showed the opposite. Human rights organizations also claimed that the destruction of Palestinian civilian sites was carried out without any military necessity, but Israel denied these accusations.

Hamas was also accused by the UN of deliberately firing at Israeli civilians, which killed 3 people. A report from the UN Human Rights Mission, led by Judge Goldstone, said that many of the actions of both Hamas and Israel during the operation could be classified as war crimes. It should be noted, however, that this UN report has been recognized by many, including the House of Representatives of the American Congress, as biased, biased, directed against Israel, distorting the truth and encouraging terror.

Economy

High population density, limited land resources and access to the sea, continued isolation of the Gaza Strip and severe security restrictions have worsened the economic situation in the sector in recent years.

The unemployment rate in Gaza is 40 percent. 70 percent of the sector's population lives below the poverty line.

The sector's economy is based on small-scale production, fishing, agriculture (growing of citrus fruits, olives, vegetables and fruits), dairy products and halal beef. Prior to the Second Intifada, many of the sector's residents worked in Israel or in factories in Israeli settlements in the sector. With the outbreak of the intifada, and especially after Israel left the sector in 2005, this opportunity has disappeared. Exports of local goods were reduced as a result of the blockade and the establishment of the Hamas regime, and many small businesses went bankrupt. Nevertheless, Israel allows the export of strawberries and flowers (primarily carnations). Fishing volumes have declined.

Crafts are developed in the Gaza Strip - they produce textiles and embroidery, soap, mother-of-pearl products, and olive wood carvings. Since the time of Israeli control, industrial centers have preserved small factories built by Israeli entrepreneurs.

Main trading partners the Gaza Strip are Israel, Egypt and the PA.

Currency used in the Gaza Strip- Israeli shekels and US dollars. Egyptian pounds and Jordanian dinars are also used, but to a lesser extent.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that more than half of the sector's population is under age. As a result of the policy of the Hamas regime, which is not ready to abandon its basic principle - the destruction of Israel, and also does not want to make an exchange deal, returning the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, which would lead to a partial or complete lifting of the blockade, the economic situation in the Gaza Strip difficult, although far from catastrophic. Nevertheless, during the Israeli military operation "Cast Lead" in late 2008 and early 2009, the sector's economy suffered an additional $ 4 billion damage, more than 14,000 private houses and dozens of factories were destroyed.

Footnotes

Spelling: Gaza Strip Lopatin V.V. Uppercase or lowercase? orthographic dictionary/ V.V. Lopatin, I.V. Nechaeva, L.K. Cheltsova. - M .: Eksmo, 2009 .-- 512 p., P. 398
http://israel.moy.su/publ/4-1-0-25
Nobel laureate Auman calls delimitation a "disaster"
Is Gaza "occupied" territory? (CNN, January 6, 2009) fckLR * The U.N. position fckLR ** «In February 2008, Secretary-General Ban was asked at a media availability whether Gaza is occupied territory. "I am not in a position to say on these legal matters," he responded.
fckLR ** The next day, at a press briefing, a reporter pointed out to a U.N. spokesman that the secretary-general had told Arab League representatives that Gaza was still considered occupied.fckLR ** "Yes, the UN defines Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as Occupied Palestinian Territory. No, that definition hasn" t changed, " the spokesman replied.
fckLR ** Farhan Haq, spokesman for the secretary-general, told CNN Monday that the official status of Gaza would change only through a decision of the U.N. Security Council. "FckLR
fckLR * The U.S. positionfckLR ** [...] The U.S. State Department Web site also includes Gaza when it discusses the "occupied" territories. State Department spokeswoman Amanda Harper referred CNN Monday to the department "s Web site for any questions about the status of Gaza, and she noted that the Web site referred to the 2005 disengagement. When asked the department" s position on whether Gaza is still occupied , Harper said she would look into it. fckLR ** She has not yet contacted CNN with any more information»]
Berliner Zeitung: Prospects for Hamas
Hamas charter
The Charter of Hamas
Sderot Media Center. Our mission
Kasams in December: Terror Records
Summary of rocket fire andfckLRmortar shelling in 2008
The blockade of the Gaza Strip broke the record of Leningrad
Hamas does not believe in Israel's intention to ease the blockade
The Rise and Fall of the All Palestine Govt Avi Shlaim

It was thought that now is the time to write about the unfortunate (or ill-fated, as it is more convenient to whom) the Palestinian Gaza Strip, which does not leave the newspaper pages. It would seem that there is something going on there that excites the minds more than a million killed in Sudanese Darfur, or a hurricane in Honduras. All this is politics. It is likely that after reading this small report, the supporters of the Palestinians in the Arab-Israeli conflict will say "You are biased towards the Arabs", but paradoxically, the Israeli readers will say the same "You have a pro-Arab position." How can this be? It's very simple. If I talk about travel, I don't give a damn about politics, I am not in anybody's camp and I do not promote anyone's interests. I wanted to tell you about Gaza - I will do it, I want to remember Honduras - I will also remember it. So -

I was in Gaza about 150 times, or two hundred, did not count. Not a typo, indeed, serving in the Israeli army in 1995-1998, he spent several months in these places. I did not fight with anyone personally and did not kill anyone, but only served as a driver of a patrol jeep. The division's headquarters was located inside the block of Israeli settlements of Gush Katif, next to the settlement of Neve Dkalim. Now all these details are absolutely not secret, because in 2005 Israel completed the withdrawal of troops from the Gaza Strip, as well as all Jewish settlements were evacuated. In the same year, the Hamas Islamist radicals won the elections and the countdown began, leading to drama on the ship.

Pointer to Israeli settlements in Gaza. Now they are gone, only the military checkpoint Kisufim remained. In the upper part there is an inscription made, apparently, by evacuated settlers "We will remember and come back!"

To admit, when you see someone else's life through the prism of obvious opposition and hatred, it is very difficult to give a balanced assessment of what is happening. Especially if a couple of times your patrol jeep was thrown with Molotov Bottles, from which the leaking burning kerosene leaked through the roof and quite painfully burned your leg, leaving a small scar for life. And yet it was incredibly interesting to see the life of your opponents from the inside. After all, it cannot be that one and a half million people are doing nothing but throwing stones and bottles at Sasha Lapshin (aka puerrtto)? Maybe in their free time they still read books, go to the bazaar, make children, watch TV, treat their lower back, believe in a better life?

How can soldiers get to Gaza?

For a long time, my colleague friend and I hatched plans for how we could get out of the military unit and visit the Palestinian enclave. Everything seemed to be near, the nearby town of Khan Younes was perfectly visible, for its houses approached almost close to the dividing fence. But getting there was physically more difficult. First of all, because the military leadership, rightly fearing for our lives, did not allow us to leave the military unit on their own. If they let us go home, they took us outside the sector through the Kisufim checkpoint and dropped off on the Israeli side at the bus stop. It should be noted that such rules were introduced literally before my appearance in Gaza, because before that soldiers could leave for Israel using a regular bus with armored windows, which every hour connected the nearby Israeli settlements and Israel itself.

So, we have the following plan. Go outside the military unit, supposedly buy cigarettes in an Israeli settlement, and when you leave, quickly change out of military uniform in regular clothes. Then take the settler bus and drive outside the perimeter. No sooner said than done. And so we are on the bus with the settlers. We leave the block of settlements with a checkpoint at the exit, then less than 10 kilometers through the terrain, which cannot be called anything other than "plasticine": the highway winds through sand dunes, chaotically and chaotically built up by Arab houses, grazing cattle, mountains of garbage. And the constant observation towers every kilometer are control over the highway connecting the settlements with Israel. Here the bus goes quickly and without stops and there is nothing left to do but wait for the first stop. And here is another settlement of Kfar Darom, at the entrance to which the bus stops at the checkpoint. This is where we leave. It is noteworthy that a few years later I had a chance to visit this place again, after the end of the service, but this is a completely different story.

Tourists in Gaza?

In 1997, the situation was as follows: the Fatah movement, otherwise called the PLO, was in power in Gaza. The head of this organization was the late Yasser Arafat. Palestinian police, armed with Kalashnikovs, controlled the cities, while the Israeli army controlled the roads. Formally, there were no bans on visiting the Gaza Strip, but anyone who would have such an idea would have caused surprise and indignation among the Israelis "Are you crazy? There are only terrorists there!" It is noteworthy that all this was before the real terrorists - the Hamas movement - came to power. What were we risking as disguised soldiers? V to a greater extent by the fact that our command should know about this - we will not escape a military prison. This is certainly unpleasant, but much less painful than being lynched if one of the extremists inside Gaza finds out about it.

Who did we pretend to be? Tourists? Strange tourists, since tourism in the Gaza Strip has never existed. Any foreigner on the street is either a UN observer or a diplomat. There is no third. Hypothetically, a completely lost backpacker could come here, but this is such a rare occurrence that it is not worth talking about him at all. Accordingly, we needed a legend for those who would probably ask who we are. The legend was easily invented. A friend of mine had a British passport issued by the British Consulate in Jerusalem. The reader will be surprised - it is so obvious that such a passport could be issued only to a resident of Israel with dual citizenship! That's right, that's why the legend was invented like this - we are employees of the British consulate, and therefore the passport was issued there. When asked why your passport was not diplomatic, the answers were like that - after all, we are just chauffeurs at the consulate, we are not diplomats at all. Sounds relatively authentic?

Gaza Strip

Imagine a segment 40 kilometers long and 4 to 12. We enclose it all with a fence. Now let's add sand there, it's still a desert. In the desert, we will absolutely chaotically set up tens of thousands of houses, drop a million donkeys with carts there, then carefully fill everything with a solid layer of garbage and finally bring 1.7 million people there. Here's Gaza in two sentences. Of course, in the center of the enclave there are 9-storey buildings and even three quite fashionable hotels, not to mention a rather elegant embankment full of restaurants and cafes. Along the embankment of Gaza, the servants of the Palestinian people live in blocks, whose palaces Rublevka will envy: marble staircases, columns in the ancient Greek style, machine gunners around the perimeter. But these are rather small islands of prosperity, because 99% of the territory of Gaza is exactly as I described it above.

Now I am a little abstract from the trip 13 years ago and I will say from myself today - Gaza is not a place for those who are looking for attractions. There are no castles, ancient cathedrals, museums. There is not even nature here - the area is flat as a table, built up by 80%, and where it is not built up it is littered. But Gaza will certainly captivate those who are interested in the hot spots of the world and those who are interested in the problems of the modern Middle East. It is extremely dangerous to go there now, because with the coming to power of Hamas, things have sharply declined, although, it would seem, is much worse? Complete chaos, where you will almost certainly be mistaken for a provocateur with all the ensuing consequences. However, except from Egypt to Gaza and not get, unless there is a desire to join the human rights defenders rushing there from the sea, more like provocateurs.

Yet Gaza is not only about politics and violence. I would even say that this is absolutely not politics or violence. 1.7 million people cannot be villains. Man is an emotional creature who loves pretentious epithets. At one time, I listened on TV to the statements of the now destroyed Chechen field commander Umarov "We will drown Moscow in blood." I wanted to ask, dear, what are you talking about? Why are you bothering me with your vulgar squabbles, I can't find a job for half a year without you, and you are also going to drown me. Aren't you ashamed? The same strange and detached feeling I experienced when I saw a medium-sized demonstration in Tehran in 2008, with the flags of the United States and Israel being burned. Observing this fascinating action from the side, I wanted to ask "Comrades, do you really have nothing else to do except go to fire some rags in the middle of the working day?" This is a strange world: everyone is yelling for something, they are scolding someone, they are splashing saliva. And life, meanwhile, passes by. However, this is already the lyrics.

Below is a small selection of photographs taken in Gaza City in the spring of 1997. I want to say that the photographs were shot on a film machine and then scanned by me for a digital version. As you can see, life goes on as usual and with ordinary household chores -

And finally, your humble servant on the street in Khan Younes (south of the Gaza Strip) in 1997. An hour after this photo, I had to change my clothes to khaki colors and return to service. A kid-kid, like I'm not at all. How much water has flowed under the bridge since then, and how many countries have been circled -

The Gaza Strip is a territory on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, allocated by the UN for the creation of the Arab state of Palestine.

From 1948 (after the first Arab-Israeli war) to 1967, it was occupied by the Arab Republic of Egypt, and after the Six Day War from 1967 to 2005, by Israel.

This area is considered one of the most densely populated in the world. The Gaza Strip is 54 km long and only 12 km wide. Moreover, on an area of 363 sq. km is home to about 1.5 million Palestinians. The main source of income for local residents was the export of agricultural products, mainly citrus fruits, to Israel. However, since the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2001, Israel has virtually closed its borders.

The cities of the Gaza Strip: Abasan, Beit Hanoun, Gaza (Aza), Deir el Balah (Deir el Balah, Deir al Balah, Deir al Balah), Rafah (Raffah), Khan Younes (Khan Younis), Jabaliya.

On August 15, 2005, as part of a unilateral disengagement plan, Israel began evacuating 8,500 Jewish settlers and troops from the area. By August 22, all Jewish settlers had left the Gaza Strip. The last Israeli soldier was withdrawn on September 12, ending the 38-year Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip.

In the first democratic elections to the Palestinian Legislative Assembly held on January 25, 2006 in Gaza, Hamas unexpectedly won 74 out of 133 seats, causing an international crisis. After the victory, Hamas refused to recognize the previously concluded Palestinian agreements with Israel and to disarm its militants. As a result, the international community launched a financial boycott of Palestine.

Hamas found itself in confrontation with Fatah, whose representatives mainly consisted of the government of the Autonomy, and also continued shelling the territory of Israel. Hamas militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier, which was the reason for the start of the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.

In February 2007, an agreement on Palestinian unity was reached between the leaders of Fatah and Hamas and a coalition government was created.

The international community has once again demanded that the new Palestinian government recognize Israel, disarm the militants and end the violence. Trilateral talks between the United States, the Palestinian Authority and Israel ended in vain. In June 2007, Hamas took power by military means in the Gaza Strip and announced its intention to create an Islamic state there. In response, the head of the Palestinian Authority, the leader of the opposing Fatah group, Mahmoud Abbas, announced on June 14 the dissolution of the Hamas-dominated government, introduced a state of emergency in the region and took full power into his own hands. Experts started talking about the split of Palestine into two hostile entities.

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas created a new government in the West Bank and called Hamas militants terrorists. "

In October 2007, Israel declared the Gaza Strip a "hostile state entity" and launched a partial economic blockade, periodically cutting off electricity, cutting off energy supplies, and so on.

Along with this, in the West Bank of the Jordan River, Israel is pursuing a policy of "creeping annexation", that is, the creation of a surreptitious order of Israeli settlements in the territory determined by the UN decision for the Palestinian state. December 2007 in the Jewish settlements of Judea and Samaria

Mourning ceremonies on the death of former Prime Minister Isaril Ariel Sharon for a short time overshadowed another outbreak of the Arab-Israeli conflict associated with the unprecedented air attacks of the Israeli Air Force in the Gaza Strip. The strikes followed in December and continued in January of the new year ... How the next escalation of the conflict will affect general situation in the region? And what will the new confrontation turn out to be for the fate of the entire Middle East?

First of all, the history of the conflict should be briefly recalled. The Gaza Strip is located on land historically part of ancient Palestine, which also included modern-day Israel, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and parts of Jordan. The very name of the country comes from the word "Philistia", that is, the land inhabited by the ancient tribes of the Philistines-Phoenicians. In history, this territory is better known as "Canaan". Over the centuries, it passed from hand to hand of a variety of conquerors ...

Start modern conflict dates back to 1948, when the Jewish state of Israel appeared on the world map, but the Palestinian Arab state, as suggested by a special UN resolution, was never created - this was the beginning of the struggle of the Palestinian Arabs for their rights.

The actual blockade of Gaza began on September 19, 2007, immediately after coming to power in the sector of the Hamas group. According to her plans, the outline of a Palestinian state should include the lands of modern Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Hamas program also envisions the destruction of the state of Israel and its replacement by a Muslim theocracy. Therefore, the leadership of the group, having come to power, refused to recognize the agreements previously concluded by the Palestinians with Israel and began regularly shelling its territory. Tel Aviv responded by launching a partial economic blockade of Gaza, periodically cutting off electricity and cutting off energy supplies. Today, Egypt is also blockading Gaza ...

There are different points of view on the reasons for the current aggravation of the conflict. One of them is purely Arabic. Thus, according to Dmitry Maryasis, senior researcher at the Israel Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, activation in the region is directly related to Hamas's desire to divert the attention of the Palestinians from the internal problems of the Gaza Strip:

“It is quite possible that Hamas does not have enough legitimacy, or some financial problems have arisen - for example, due to the fact that it has become more difficult to receive money from allies, in particular from Iran, which now has a problem with international pressure, and therefore with the economy. It was necessary to somehow distract people from themselves to an external enemy, and this enemy is found very quickly - this is Israel. Israeli responses are very sensitive, very accurate and powerful. You can accuse him of excessive use of force, of aggression against civilian population This is a well-known scenario, unfortunately, it has been used for many years, and I suspect that this is not the last shelling and not the last response from Israel. "

In turn, the Palestinian political scientist Atef Abu Seif is convinced that the aggravation of the situation in the Gaza Strip is connected with the desire of Israel "To tarnish the reputation of all of Palestine, since the stability of Palestine is a direct threat to the stability of Israel and its expansionist policies." In his opinion, Tel Aviv intends "Continue to destroy the Palestinian Resistance forces under the pretext of preventing attacks against the Israelis" ...

Part of the confirmation of this point of view can be the recent announcement of the Israeli Armed Forces that the air attacks were in response to the launch of three Hamas missiles from the Gaza Strip. However, statistics show that the chance of hitting a target with a missile launched from the Gaza Strip is only three percent. Missiles being launched fall mainly in the sea, on deserted or unpopulated areas, others are easily destroyed by Israel's air defenses. So Israel's response to Hamas' provocations looks, to put it mildly, inadequate.

Moreover, some Russian experts note the clear desire of the Israeli army to strike primarily at educational institutions, medical centers and other vital objects of the blockaded territory (in particular, this is the opinion of the political scientist Maksim Shevchenko, known for his extreme views). At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed the country's official position, stating that Israel sees the Hamas movement behind any attack from the Gaza Strip, and therefore this movement will always be in the Israeli sights.

So the Israeli military is clearly interested in escalating the conflict ...

No man's land?

Meanwhile, the very question of the presence of Jews and Arabs in Palestine has received an extremely ambiguous assessment in the world. Thus, a number of authors believe that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient pre-Jewish population of Canaan. In particular, this opinion is shared by the Israeli politician and journalist Uri Avnery. Others believe that (unlike the disappeared Canaanites and Philistines) the Jewish presence in Palestine dates back to time immemorial and has never been interrupted.

However, most scholars are inclined to believe that neither Palestinian Arabs nor Jews are the indigenous population of this territory. Thus, the Russian expert A. Samsonov believes that the very phrase “Palestinian people”, which the Arabs use, has no meaning historically.

Any inhabitant of this geographic territory - an Arab, a Jew, a Circassian, a Greek, a Russian, and so on - can be called "Palestinian". There is no "Palestinian language" or "Palestinian culture". Arabs speak a dialect Arabic("Syriac" dialect). The same language is spoken by the Arabs of Syria, Lebanon and the Kingdom of Jordan. Thus, the Arabs are not an "indigenous people" whose lands were enslaved by the "treacherous Jews". They are as much aliens as the Jews. Palestinian Arabs do not have more rights to these lands than Jews, "- A. Samsonov concludes.

He rightly notes that there has never been any Palestinian Arab state in history, and therefore no one has occupied it. Since ancient times, there have been city-states in Palestine, various peoples lived, and their territory was periodically part of one or another empire. Of the ancient world... If any people have the right to call historical Palestine their homeland, it is the Philistines who have long been assimilated and dissolved in the diversity of peoples ...

The question of who today has more rights to a territory where both Jews and Arabs are newcomers is certainly very controversial. So, on the one hand, it was the Jewish settlers who at one time brought progress to this region. And the development of infrastructure, in turn, led to an influx of the Arab population from neighboring countries - for example, during the period of the British colonial mandate (1922-1948) about 1 million Arabs came to Palestine.

In addition, in 1948 the Arab state was not created largely precisely because of ... the Arab factor itself! So, Egypt hastened to occupy the Gaza Strip, and Transjordan annexed most of the land of Judea and Samaria - all of these lands were to become part of the Palestinian state. Jordan also seized East Jerusalem, which was supposed to remain under UN control within the Greater Jerusalem, outside of any state or nationality - these lands, after their annexation, were called the "West Bank of the Jordan River" ... Thus, in the fact that the Palestinian Arab state was never created is actually the fault of the Arabs themselves!

A. Samsonov also notes that the basis of the conflict between Israel and the Arab countries is not at all a dispute over the right to own Palestine, but a religious confrontation between Judaism and Islam.

“The Palestinian question has nothing to do with the struggle of the so-called. Of the “Palestinian people” for the re-establishment of a “Palestinian state” that did not exist in nature. This is a continuation of the battle of the Arabs for domination over the Middle East and North Africa (the idea of the “Great Caliphate”) against the “infidels” (Jews and Christians). Therefore, it is not necessary to make "innocent victims" out of Palestinian Arabs, but "occupiers" out of Jews. Both sides have many sins ",- the Russian expert believes ...

Dialogue between the deaf and the dumb

Today the world community does not abandon its attempts to find a compromise between the warring parties. The last Israeli-Palestinian negotiations resumed five months ago and ... immediately faced many difficulties! The role of the arbiter traditionally went to the United States of America - Secretary of State John Kerry acted as a mediator between Israelis and Palestinians in January of this year.

However, the plan for an interim peace treaty proposed by the United States was not accepted even by the League of Arab States. In particular, the organization opposed the idea of an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley, where the outer border of the occupied West Bank lies. In turn, the Israeli leaders also rejected the proposal of the US Secretary of State, according to which the IDF soldiers must liberate this valley within ten years - Tel Aviv believes that the complete withdrawal of troops will pose a threat to the security of the Israeli state.

As already mentioned, this security is solved by harsh military measures ...

But one should not think that the Israeli side is not ready to make any compromises in resolving this issue. Thus, Israel has officially declared five peace principles on the basis of which calmness in the region can be achieved. Their essence is as follows:

1) If Israel is asked to recognize the sovereignty of the Palestinians, they, in turn, must fulfill the requirement to recognize Israel as a sovereign state of the Jewish people. Non-recognition of the Jewish character of the State of Israel is at the heart of the conflict.

2) The question of Palestinian refugees must be resolved in the context of a sovereign Palestinian state. Palestinian refugees should be given the freedom to settle in Palestinian territory, but Israel cannot afford to be overwhelmed by a flood of refugees that will deprive the world's only Jewish state of its national character.

3) The peace agreement must be final and end the conflict. The world must be stable. It cannot become a transitional stage during which the Palestinians will use their state as a springboard for a new conflict with Israel. After the signing of the peace agreement, no new demands can be put forward.

4) Taking into account the fact that after Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, it was attacked, it is important that the future Palestinian state does not become a threat to Israel. No territory left by Israel under the agreement can be used by terrorists or their Iranian allies as a springboard for an attack on Israel. The only way to achieve this goal and prevent further conflicts is through the effective demilitarization of the future Palestinian state.

5) International recognition of agreements on demilitarization.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry also notes that the small number of victims on the Israeli side in the current conflict is not explained at all by the "humanity" of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists and not by the "harmlessness" of the missiles they launch at Israel, but solely by the response of the Israel Defense Forces ...

In general, the main demands of the Israeli side today boil down to mutual recognition of states and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip. However, these principles can hardly be implemented within the framework of the Hamas rule, the main goal of which is proclaimed the destruction of Israel as a state.

War without end and without edge

I must say that international events now unfolding in the Middle East, are largely in favor of the Hamas movement. Thus, in the Syrian civil war, which has been going on for several years, the government army wins significant victories. Iranian diplomacy also achieved success, which managed to achieve a partial lifting of economic sanctions. The latter cannot but alert Israel, because it is Tehran, according to the country's intelligence, who is arming the militants in the Gaza Strip.

For example, the Israeli military intelligence website DEBKAfile, citing security sources, reports that Palestinians are increasingly firing Austrian Steyr HS.50 sniper rifles licensed in Iran. According to the source, these rifles are delivered to the Gaza Strip from Iran. by sea, using the smuggling channels of the Lebanese "Hezbollah" - according to the Israeli website, the militants of this Islamist group are actively using rifles Steyr HS .50 and during the hostilities in Syria.

In turn, the official representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Marziye Afham, sharply condemned the attacks of the "Zionist regime" against the Gaza Strip. According to Ms Afkham, the latest attacks were caused by Tel Aviv's fear of the possibility of a third intifada in the occupied Palestinian territories. According to the Iranian representative, "The Zionist regime is responsible for a number of crimes and terrorist attacks." She called on the UN, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and other international organizations to condemn such crimes. Ms Afham also noted that the aggressive actions on the part of Tel Aviv indicate that Israel feels its impunity ...

The danger of the development of the conflict in the Gaza Strip is also expressed in the fact that it is this conflict that can serve as a reason for attempts to use nuclear weapons... Thus, the commander of the Iranian army, General Ataollah Salehi, said that "Only one Iranian army is capable of destroying all of Israel" - the hint of weapons of mass destruction is more than obvious. And as if in response, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces Benny Gantz threatened that the army of the Jewish state itself is capable of attacking Iran, without foreign support.

“Currently, there are no targets left that could not be hit by the IDF, from Iran to the Gaza Strip. How to stop Iran, whose nuclear program is now the main threat to Israel, is a matter of political expediency, but not the capabilities of the IDF, which allow striking any source of threat, wherever it is, ” said the general.

Thus, it becomes obvious that one of the reasons for the aggravation of the situation in the Gaza Strip was the events associated with Syria and Iran ...

However, in addition to foreign policy factors, attention should also be paid to the inner side of the issue, which feeds this complex problem.

So, behind the incessant terrorist acts, there is undoubtedly a social factor, which Gunnar Heinson, head of the Lemkin Institute at the University of Bremen, spoke about in his publication in the Wall Street Journal. According to his theory, a surplus of young people in the Gaza Strip leads to increased radicalism, wars and terrorism.

“The vast majority of the population does not feel the need to do anything in order to 'raise' their offspring. Most of the children are fed, clothed, vaccinated and in school only thanks to the UN UNRWA program. UNRWA is driving the Palestinian issue into a dead end by classifying Palestinians as 'refugees' - not only those who have been forced to leave their homes, but also all their offspring. "- writes the researcher.

He notes that UNRWA is almost entirely funded by the United States (31%) and the European Union (50%). And only 7% of these funds come from Muslim sources. Due to the financing of the West, most of the population of Gaza lives at a rather low, but stable level. The result of this policy today is the rapid demographic growth of the population in the blockaded zone. According to official figures, from 1950 to 2008, the population of Gaza grew from 240,000 to 1.5 million. If the current trend continues in the future, then in 2040 the population of the Gaza Strip will reach three million!

And while the West provides food support and funds schools, health care and housing, Muslim countries are supplying Gaza with weapons. According to Gunnar Heinson, this leads to the fact that "Not constrained by such a hassle as the need to earn a living, young people have a lot of time to dig tunnels, smuggle weapons, assemble missiles and shoot" ...

Hence the conclusion that it is necessary to solve the conflict problem that has arisen in the Gaza Strip in a comprehensive manner. In addition to active external interference in the affairs of Gaza, the world community also needs to conduct a great social work with a predominantly young population of the sector. And the warring parties also need the mutual recognition of two states - Palestine and Israel, without which peace on this earth is simply impossible. In addition, there is an acute issue of the civil war in Syria, in which the Hamas movement, Iran's foreign policy and the intrigues of the Gulf monarchies, which see in the conflict between Israel and Palestine not only a confrontation between Judaism and Islam, but also a way to raise their role in the region and enrich themselves at the expense of neighbors ...

In a word, the tangle of contradictions here has become very difficult and it will be difficult for the world community to unravel it.

Yulia Chmelenko, specially for the "Ambassador Prikaz"