What is life like for a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip ?
The Gaza Strip is a densely populated Palestinian territory bordering Israel, the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt with roughly 2 million Palestinians, half of whom are children under the age of 18, all living within an area less than ⅛ the size of Rhode Island. Approximately 70% are refugees or descendants of refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their lands and properties in historic Palestine by Zionist forces in 1947–1950.
In 2007, when the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, rose to power in Gaza, Israel imposed a suffocating siege, preventing Palestinians from traveling in and out unless they obtain a hard-to-get Israeli permit, and barred most trade with the outside world.
Israel regularly fires on Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of Gaza and at individuals near the fence Israel erected around Gaza in the 1990s. This area includes some of the richest agricultural land in Gaza, so Palestinian farmers risk life and limb merely trying to eke out a living for their families.
These are among the reasons why the United Nations considers Gaza to be under Israeli occupation even following Israel’s withdrawal of its settlements in 2005. Israel also controls most of Gaza’s electrical grid and population registry, by which all government identification is issued.
At times, Hamas or other armed Palestinian groups have responded to Israeli raids, aggressions and other provocations by firing mortars or rockets into Israel, or releasing incendiary balloons carried by the wind into Israeli-tended fields.
Palestinian rockets are by their nature indiscriminate, and have caused fear and chaos in Israel, and somewhat fewer than one hundred deaths there over the last twenty years. Incendiary balloons have caused some damage to agricultural fields and nature preserves.
Israel, which has highly sophisticated targeting capabilities and multiple means of remote delivery, including aircraft, drones, and long-range artillery, has deliberately and disproportionately attacked Palestinian civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza, killing thousands, including elderly men and women, and many children. Israelis commonly refer to these periodic assaults on the Gaza strip as “mowing the lawn.”
Today, 97% of Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption, and 80% Palestinians in Gaza endure power cuts every day. The heavily damaged health care system also cannot handle the needs of Palestinians, and Israel frequently prevents patients from leaving Gaza to seek life-saving care. Unemployment in Gaza is about 50%, and the poverty rate exceeds 50%.
The U.S. must insist that Israel ends its cruel and inhumane siege on Gaza, which has transformed that area into an open air prison for its 2 million Palestinian residents.