The Gaza Strip: Maps and Fact File

Updated Tue. Jul. 4 2006 4:26 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The Gaza Strip

The Gaza Strip is a narrow coastal sliver of land far smaller than any major Canadian city, nestled between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.

It takes its name from Gaza, its main city.

The Strip's borders were initially defined a year after the creation of Israel in 1948 under the Armistice Agreements, which followed the dissolution of the British mandate of Palestine. The agreements essentially gave Egypt control of the occupied region until the Six-Day War in 1967.  During that conflict, the area fell under Israel's control. 

In 1993, after the Palestinian-Israeli agreements known as the Oslo Accords, much of the Strip came under limited Palestinian Authority control.

In 1995, the Israeli government implemented then-prime minister Ariel Sharon's plan for unilateral disengagement from the Strip.

The plan required the dismantling of all Israeli settlements and the removal of all Israeli settlers and military bases from the Strip.

The Israeli cabinet formally declared an end to military rule in the Gaza Strip after 38 years of control when the process was completed in September 2005.

However, the area remains a land in limbo as neither Gaza nor the West Bank are recognized as sovereign states.

According to the international community, the Gaza Strip is occupied by Israel as it still exercises control over most of the area's borders, its territorial waters and airspace.

Ongoing negotiations to determine the permanent status of the regions have been stalled by violence and accusations of broken commitments.

Israeli army elite troops storm Hamas offices during an overnight operation in the West Bank city of Nablus. (AP / Uriel Sinai)

Population

The influx of refugees into the narrow strip of land means it has one of the highest population densities in the world. More than 1.4 million residents are densely packed into the area of 360 square kilometres.

Over 99 per cent residents of the strip are Palestinian Muslim, with a small Palestinian Christian (0.7 per cent) minority.

Years of strife and political upheaval have left the Palestinians with a 55 per cent unemployment rate.

It's estimated that more than three-quarters of Gazans live below the poverty line -- defined by the World Bank as living on less than $2.30 US a day

The majority of the Strip's residents are refugees or descended from refugees, many of whom fled the city of Jaffa during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.  The other refugees are primarily from towns and villages south of Jaffa and from the Beersheva area in the Negev.

About 200,000 refugees first spilled into Gaza, when only 80,000 people had lived in the area.  According to the United Nations, there are 961,645 registered refugees in Gaza from a total population of more than 1.4 million.

More than half of the Strip's refugees, 471,555, live in eight camps that maintain extremely high population densities, says the UN.

The Beach or "Shati" camp is just one square kilometre but hosts almost 80,000 refugees.

Gaza Refugee Camps and Populations (from the UN website)

• Jabalia: 106,691
• Rafah: 95,187
• Beach: 78,768
• Nuseirat:  57,120
• Khan Younis:  63,219
• Bureij:  28,770
• Maghazi:  22,266
• Deir el-Balah:  19,53

Economy

Including the West Bank, the UN estimates that of the 125,000 Palestinians who used to work in Israel, or in joint industrial zones, 100,000 have lost their jobs because of Israeli closure policies. 

The 2005 Israeli withdrawal has provided some opportunities for economic growth but the election of a Hamas-led government in March prompted global aid withdrawals that crippled the government.

Canada became the first country besides Israel to cut off aid.

"The contingency is that until such time as we see a change in position from the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority, there will be no direct contact, and there will certainly be no aid flowing through that government," Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said at the time.

According to the CIA World Factbook, the per capita GDP in 2003 was $600 a year. Gaza Strip industries are generally small family businesses that produce textiles, soap, olive-wood carvings, and mother-of-pearl souvenirs. The main agricultural products are olives, citrus, vegetables, Halal beef, and dairy products. Primary exports are citrus and cut flowers, while primary imports are food, consumer goods, and construction materials. The main trade partners of the Gaza Strip are Israel, Egypt, and the West Bank.

Borders and crossings

Gaza Border

A 52-kilometre fence was constructed in 1994 under the leadership of former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in a bid to separate Israel from the Gaza Strip.

The fence is the frequent target of Palestinian militant attacks and guerrilla fighters are often spotted and killed before they reach the barrier.

Israel claims that the barrier has been effective in preventing terrorists from leaving Gaza, saying that virtually all suicide bombers trying to cross the border have been stopped or detonated their charges at a crossing point.

After the 2005 withdrawal, Israeli wanted to keep control of Gaza's border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Route, to control traffic and prevent the movement of illegal materials such as weapons, ammunition and illegal drugs.

However, Israel was obliged to drop the plan and it handed responsibility for the border to Egypt.

Under a deal brokered by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israel agreed to give the Palestinians control of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, with help from European Union monitors.

The Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border is the fenced-in coastal strip's main gateway with the world.

Militant Activity

Gaza is one of the strongholds of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in January 2006.

Gaza is one of the strongholds of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in January 2006.

Other militant groups such as Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (affiliated to the former ruling party Fatah), and the Popular Resistance Committees also have a foothold in the Strip.

Hamas' anti-Israeli rhetoric has found a receptive audience amongst the Palestinian electorate, namely because the former long-ruling Fatah government fell out of favour for failing to stamp out corruption and government inefficiency.

Hamas has also gained popularity for establishing an extensive network of welfare programs throughout West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But the already impoverished Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority has been brought to the brink of a financial meltdown because of Hamas' longstanding refusal to budge on its platform.

Until recently, Hamas opposed the existence of a Jewish state and consistently rejected Western demands to accept previous peace accords and renounce violence.

As a result, Western countries turned off the spigot of much-needed aid, further crippling the Strip and bringing the Palestinian Authority to the brink of a financial meltdown.

A ray of hope emerged near the end of June when rival Hamas and Fatah parties agreed to a document which calls for a two-state solution aimed at resolving the conflict with Israel and in effect implicitly recognizes the Jewish state.