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GEOGRAPHY AND INTERNATIONAL LEGAL CONTEXT
What is known today as the “Gaza Strip” is a stretch of land along the Mediterranean Sea, 25 miles long and 4 to 7.5 miles wide. (For perspective, this is less than 1/3 the size of the city of Los Angeles.) Gaza is bordered by Egypt to the southwest, and Israel to the north and east.
The Gaza Strip, along with the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), is recognized by the United Nations as “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” These areas have been under Israeli control since 1967, when Israel prevailed in the Arab-Israeli War. Together, Gaza and the West Bank are recognized as the State of Palestine by 150 UN member states; in the UN as a whole, the State of Palestinian holds non-member observer status.
Despite Israel’s official shuttering of all military bases in Gaza in 2005, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in 2024 that Israel “continued to exercise certain key elements of authority over the Gaza Strip, including control of the land, sea and air borders, restrictions on movement of people and goods, collection of import and export taxes, and military control over the buffer zone.” This level of control was deemed by the ICJ as continued occupation, and illegal under international law. (Institute for Middle East Understanding)
SINCE OCTOBER 2023
Tiny Gaza began dominating international headlines in October 2023. A multi-pronged Hamas attack in Southern Israel on October 7 killed more than 1,200 people, and 251 hostages were taken. Israel launched an all-out offensive nominally aimed at the elimination of Hamas. In two years’ time, however, more than one tenth* of the entire civilian population of Gaza was “directly” killed or injured by Israeli weapons, with an unknown additional number of “indirect” deaths resulting from the widespread decimation of infrastructure, “including energy, water, sanitation, agriculture, housing, and healthcare” (Brown University). An additional factor in these “indirect” deaths has been Israel’s extreme restrictions on international humanitarian aid.
As reported by UNRWA (the United National Relief and Works Agency), between October 7, 2023, and January 28, 2026, 71,667 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip and another 171,343 injured. These numbers are widely believed to be undercounted.
*For perspective: 10% of the population of the US is 34.2 million people.
AFTER THE CEASEFIRE
Since a ceasefire was declared on October 10, 2025, media coverage has shifted away from Gaza, even as the horrors have continued. As stated in a report by Amnesty International, “the ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal. But while Israeli authorities and forces have reduced the scale of their attacks…. the genocide is not over.”
Israeli troops continue to kill civilians
- Between the start of the ceasefire and February 2, 2026, 509 Palestinians were killed and 1,405 wounded by Israeli forces.
“Indirect” deaths, resulting from lack of access to basic resources, continue
- On January 2, 2026, the Guardian reported that “As Gaza enters the bleakest period of winter, children are dying of hypothermia, drowning in flooded camps and burning to death as their families try to cook in flimsy tents…”
Israel continues to restrict humanitarian aid
Displaced Children in Line for Food.
- As of January 1, 2026, Israel has “deregistered” 37 international NGOs that had been distributing aid in Gaza and the West Bank. Among these organizations are the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, and Save the Children: groups that have provided humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees for decades.
Israel has continued its campaign to disable UNRWA
- United Nations Agencies are not among those affected by “deregistration.” However, as stated by United Nations Commissioner-General Phillippe Lazzarini on February 4, “More than 380 [UNRWA] colleagues have been killed in Gaza [since October 2023], and most of our premises have been damaged or destroyed.” Most recently, this destruction has included bulldozing UNRWA’s office in Sheikh Jarrah, and cutting off water and electricity to more than 16,000 registered Palestinian refugees living in Shu’fat Camp on January 27.
Israel is restricting crossings of medical evacuees at the newly reopened Rafah Crossing
Medical evacuation for injured Palestinians through Rafah crossing, Gaza Strip. © 2025 UNRWA Photo by Ashraf Amra
- More than 18,500 people in Gaza, including 4,000 children, are registered with the UN as being in critical need of medical evacuation. With the recent (early February) reopening of the Rafah Crossing into Egypt, many families have gathered at the border in hope of life-saving care for their loved ones. Israel’s initial commitment was to allow 50 medical evacuees to cross each day. Ten days later, an average of only 12 patients per day had been allowed to cross. During that time, a seven-year-old boy died from lack of care (Save the Children). According to Arwa Damon, former CNN correspondent: “In a period of… roughly seven months last year, more than a thousand people died while they were waiting for medical evacuation.”
WE, AS US CITIZENS, ARE COMPLICIT
The ongoing genocide in Gaza has been largely funded by US taxpayers. Since October 7, 2023, the US has provided more than $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel (William D. Hartung (Senior Research Fellow, Quincy Institute).
This is why we, as Central Coast Advocates for Peace in the Middle East, have repeatedly appealed to our Congressional Representative, Jimmy Panetta, to cosponsor the Block the Bombs Act, H.R. 3565.
This Act does not ban future military aid to Israel. Rather, it identifies offensive weapons that “the President cannot sell, transfer or export to Israel unless [two] conditions are met…specifying the weapons’ purposes and…assurances from Israel that the weapons will be used…in accordance with international human rights laws.”
We have also been advocating for Rep. Panetta to cosponsor H.R. 2411, the UNRWA Funding Emergency Restoration Act of 2025. The US has withheld funding to UNRWA since 2023 when the Israeli government alleged that UNRWA employees had participated in the October 7 massacre. After thorough investigation, these allegations proved to be unfounded. The U.S. remains the ONLY country of the 15 which had paused funding not to have restored it.
Under the terms of international law, as set out in the Hague Conventions and the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel, as the occupying power, is responsible for the safety and welfare of the population in the territories under its control, including Gaza. (IMEU)
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GAZA BEFORE 2023
In ancient times, the land that is now Gaza was a bustling center of inter-regional maritime and overland trade. A major producer of olives, dates, apricots, grapes, and citrus fruits, Gaza also exported fine wines, soaps, textiles, and pottery.
As Anne Irfan, author of A Brief History of the Gaza Strip, observed in a recent interview:
“[Gaza] is mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible. It features in the histories of numerous ancient empires… For most of its longer history it was a seaport, it was located on the crossroads of different continents and different empires, and it was really something of a hub for traders and travelers. So it was very open, and characterized by people coming and going. So… the very modern period, where Gaza is characterized by blockades… and no one can get in or out is really an aberration in its longer history.”
The following excerpts from a recent PBS news article provide a basic outline of the modern history of Gaza, from 1948 to 2023, from the perspective of military and political rule.
1948 – 1967: Egyptian rule of Gaza
Before the war surrounding Israel’s establishment in 1948, present-day Gaza was part of a large swath of the Middle East under British colonial rule. After Israel defeated the coalition of Arab states, the Egyptian army was left in control of a small strip of land wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean.
During the [Arab-Israeli war of 1948], some 700,000 Palestinians either fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel — a mass uprooting that they call the Nakba, or “catastrophe.” Tens of thousands of Palestinians flocked to the strip. Under Egyptian military control, Palestinian refugees in Gaza were stuck, homeless and stateless. Egypt didn’t consider them to be citizens, and Israel wouldn’t let them return to their homes. Many were supported by UNWRA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, which has a heavy presence in Gaza to this day. Meanwhile, some young Palestinians became “fedayeen” — insurgency fighters who conducted raids into Israel.
1967 – 1993: Israel seizes control
Israel seized control of Gaza from Egypt during the 1967 Mideast war, when it also captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem — areas that remain under Israeli control today.
Israel built more than 20 Jewish settlements in Gaza during this period. It also signed a peace treaty with Egypt… Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi later referenced this 40-year old treaty when he declined to permit Palestinian refugees from Gaza into Egypt, saying the potential entrance of militants into Egypt would threaten longstanding peace between Israel and Egypt.
The first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted in Gaza in December 1987, kicking off more than five years of sustained protests and bloody violence. It was also during this time that the Islamic militant group Hamas was established in Gaza.
1993 – 2005: The Palestinian Authority takes charge
For a time, promising peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders made the future of Gaza look somewhat hopeful. Following the Oslo accords — a set of agreements between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat that laid the groundwork for a two-state solution — control of Gaza was handed to the fledgling Palestinian Authority.
But the optimism was short lived. A series of suicide attacks by Hamas militants, the 1995 assassination of Rabin by a Jewish ultranationalist opposed to his peacemaking and the election of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister the following year all hindered U.S.-led peace efforts. Another peace push collapsed in late 2000 with the eruption of the second Palestinian uprising.
As the uprising subsided in 2005, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon led a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, uprooting all of Israel’s troops and roughly 9,000 settlers in a move that bitterly divided Israel.
2005 – 2023: Hamas seizes power
Just months after Israel’s withdrawal, Hamas won parliamentary elections over Fatah, the long-dominant Palestinian political party. The following year, after months of in-fighting, Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.
Israel and Egypt imposed a crippling blockade on the territory, monitoring the flow of goods and people in and out… The closure crippled the local economy, sent unemployment skyrocketing, and emboldened militancy in the region, one of the most densely populated places on the planet.
SOURCES
Aljazeera: Which of Gaza’s Cultural Heritage Sites Have Been Destroyed?
The Beinart Notebook: A Short History of the Gaza Strip
PBS: A Timeline of the Gaza Strip in Modern History