Who Owns the Gaza Strip? | Unpacked

Gaza might be small but it generates huge headlines since October 7th the 25m strip has been at the center of a brutal war between Israel and Hamas but as both sides like to remind each other history didn't start on October 7th over the past Century Gaza has changed hands six times eventually ending up in the hands of Hamas who will rule the strip next that's anyone's guess but as the cliche goes those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it so how did such a beautiful place devolve into blood misery chaos Gaza has stood

in some form or another for 4,000 years but our story starts in 1967 that's when Israel went to war against three of its neighbors tensions had been simmering for months and Israelis were certain they were on the brink of Extinction but instead of being annihilated they won in under a week the Jewish State quadrupled its territory taking the Golan Heights from Syria the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt on its face this sounds like an incredible Victory right there was only one problem there were

already people living in these regions and these Palestinians had a complicated relationship to Israel many of them were refugees who had been displaced 19 years before as the Jewish State battled its neighbors for Independence some had been forcibly expelled by the newly created Israeli Army others had fled either way most had spent the past two decades living in refugee camps now roughly half of the world's Palestinians found themselves living under Israeli control but Israel hadn't fought the War to expand its territory on the eve of the war Israelis were convinced they were on the brink

of extermination they viewed the war as one of survival not expansion so though the entire Nations celebrated their astonishing Victory some prominent voices within the Jewish State called for an immediate unilateral Return of the territory without asking for anything in exchange [Music] [Music] but plenty of Israelis didn't share this view religious nationalist Israelis in particular saw the victory as divine intervention proof that they were meant to live in these areas the West Bank in particular also known as Jude and Samaria is seated with thousands of years of Jewish history and the miraculous Victory seemed like

a return to that ancient history so even as the government planned to potentially use its new territory as a bargaining chip it encouraged citizens to build communities in the West Bank Gaza and Si it was a strange position to take on the one hand Israel fully allowed its citizens to move to and build on the conquered territories on the other they still held on to the hope that they could barter these territories in exchange for recognition from their neighbors but that's not what happened shortly after the war the Arab League made their position clear declaring

no peace with Israel no negotiation with Israel no recognition of Israel that lasted until a new Egyptian president bravely chose to make peace with Israel in exchange for the entire Sinai Peninsula but when the Israelis tried to bundle Gaza in with the rest of the peninsula Sadat was like ah thanks but no thanks why was Gaza such a hot potato why didn't Egypt want it back well the short answer is that Gaza was never technically part of Egypt back in 1947 the UN had vote to split Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State

the Gaza Strip was supposed to be part of the Arab state but that deal never happened so if the Gaza Strip was originally supposed to be part of an Arab Palestinian State why didn't Israel just hand it over to the Palestinians instead of trying to strike a deal with Egypt ooh this is a great question oh my God this is a great question well at the time the Palestinians were represented by a coalition of groups known as the PLO politically they were a relatively diverse Bunch but they all agreed on one thing Israel had to

go entirely there was no way the Israelis were going to hand over Gaza to their sworn enemies plus the PLO wasn't interested in ruling Gaza they wanted all of the land that's why Israel held on to Gaza after 1967 Egypt didn't want it handing it to the PLO was a non-starter but that still left the issue of gaza's 300,000 Palestinians now you might also wonder why Israel didn't just offer citizenship to its new popul a and the answer might surprise you it actually did sort of remember Jews and Arabs had been at war with each

other on and off since the 1920s there was no trust between the two and very little respect still Israel offered two groups the opportunity to apply for Israeli citizenship the Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and the gazans who had been living in the Gaza Strip since before 1948 but both groups largely refused to apply for Israeli citizenship accepting citizenship meant they were collaborating with the Enemy tacitly agreeing to live under occupation refusing was an act of resistance which meant that even though Palestinians and Gaza were not Israeli citizens they lived under an Israeli military administration

at first the Israelis tried very hard to make their presence in Gaza invisible but that turned out to be impossible invisible military rule is still military rule and hostile population is still a hostile population Israel devised incentives to lure Palestinians out of Gaza and into the West Bank from which they would likely go to Jordan the biggest lure was providing temporary jobs but when those jobs were finished most gazin chose to go back home to Gaza and so Israel began deporting gazin to the West Bank in Jordan under increasingly flimsy pretexts the Jordanian King was

not a fan of these deportations he'd already taken in hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and he was really starting to regret it mostly because the pl kept attacking Israel which meant that Israel would respond usually by entering Jordan with tanks to make matters even worse for King Hussein the PLO kept trying to assassinate him if he didn't get rid of them he would lose his crown if not his head eventually he expelled the PLO for good killing thousands of Palestinian civilians along the way meanwhile ordinary Gins were caught between a rock and a hard place

on the one side was Israeli military rule which exercised strict control over the population on the other side however were increasingly violent Palestinian groups who harassed tortured and killed anyone who was seen as collaborating with Israel but the lure of good jobs was hard to resist for years gaza's economy was one of the fastest growing in the world helped Along by Israeli loans for entrepreneurs and jobs within both Israel and Gaza at the time there was no wall separating the two territories it may seem strange to us now but both Jewish and Arab Israelis traveled

to and from Gaza frequently Israeli Arab citizens visited relatives in the strip Israeli Jews came in to shop and explore lured by the relatively low prices in the markets meanwhile Gins were largely free to come and go as they pleased but this period of relative calm didn't last for one the strip's economic dependence on Israel was a double-edged sword on the one hand Palestinians were making money on the other there were very few opportunities to work inside the strip and almost no demand for skilled labor either in Israel or Gaza plus tens of thousands of

Jewish Israelis had flocked to the West Bank in Gaza eager to establish in some cases reestablish communities that had existed for centuries but Gaza is Tiny with an extremely high birth rate by the'80s the place was already uncomfortably crowded especially once Israelis began to build communities along the coast of the strip resentment simmered tensions Rose and in 1987 it all fell apart by this point violence between Palestinians and Jews was a semi-normal occurrence in the Gaza Strip but when an Israeli truck crashed into a car full of Palestinian laborers the strip exploded into fullscale Rebellion

2 days before the accident a Jewish man had been stabbed to death rumors circulated that the crash was Revenge orchestrated by a family member it wasn't but that didn't matter for two decades Palestinians had lived under Israeli military rule this was their answer to 20 years of frustration for 5 years Gaza and the West Bank burnt Israel had once been seen as the David facing off against the Goliath of the entire Arab world now the news told a different story broadcasting footage of teenage soldiers in tanks pointing machine guns at children with rocks and under

the radar a new islamist group was forming to fight the Israelis they called themselves the Islamic resistance movement acronym Hamas today everyone knows who Hamas is but in the chaos of the first inata it wasn't immediately clear that a new enemy had emerged at least until Hamas started killing Israelis all while the country battled years of pent up Palestinian rage and hatred the inapa lasted for five exhausting years by 1993 many Israelis were simply done few people wanted to send their teenagers to patrol the West Bank in Gaza the territories surely weren't worth all this

Bloodshed but what if the Palestinians covered themselves was a time were they finally willing to compromise with the Israelis at the start of this video I mentioned that the Israelis didn't recognize the PLO but by 1993 that had changed the PLO had publicly renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist exist and so for the first time sworn enemy sat in the same room inking agreements that would hopefully result in a Palestinian State one day in the meantime Palestinians finally had an autonomous functioning government of their own called the Palestinian Authority and led by yasat

there was just one fly in the ointment actually there were three flies one was the fact that a significant minority of Israelis was very unhappy with this deal one was the PLO near legendary incompetence and Corruption and one was Hamas Hamas believed that Muslim land was sacred which meant that no human had a right to give it away to non-muslims and so they did everything they could to tank the peace agreements violently they weren't alone there was a small but vocal contingent of Israelis who believed exactly the same thing Israel was Jewish land to hand

it over was a sin especially when the price for it was Jewish blood but even some Jews marched in the streets calling for the end of the government Hamas and their cronies kept up their string of suicide bombings stabbings and abductions in total nearly 300 Israelis were killed meanwhile more and more Israelis took to the streets in droves to protest the peace process wondering why the government was making deals with people who blew up buses despite this tense atmosphere everyone was shocked when a religious Jewish extremist assassinated the Israeli Prime Minister a Jew killing another

Jew not just another Jew but the leader of the Jewish State and still somehow the peace talks limped on but everything came crashing down yet again in the year 2000 the Israeli Prime Minister had just offered Arafat the most generous peace deal in nearly a decade of talks arat walked away a few weeks later another inata erupted this wasn't the SP on aneous Grassroots uprising of 1987 this was centralized and planned which made it far more deadly more than a thousand Israelis and 5,000 Palestinians died in the near daily attacks and Israelis heart sick and

horrified did everything they could to stop the attacks that originated in Gaza they instituted checkpoints and curfews around the strip they patrolled the coast in case fishing boats were smuggling in weapons and they began to build a barrier separating them from their Nextdoor Neighbors the days of going to Gaza for cheap produce were over there would be no more trips to visit relatives or holy sites there would be no more work Gins who wanted to cross into Israel for any reason were out of luck unless they were Jewish roughly 8,000 Jews still lived in the

southern Gaza Strip in a block known as gush katif you never know looking at their synagogues and swimming pools that they lived in one of the most volatile regions in the world and you never guess that their presence deeply divided the nation were they Fanatics making the Army guard them day and night from the surrounding 1.3 million Palestinians or were they the Vanguard the first line of defense in the inevitable clash between the two peoples the Prime Minister may have had his own personal opinions on the matter but his political strategy was clear this Jewish

Enclave inside Gaza was a security nightmare not to mention extremely expensive to maintain after the second inata few people had the appetite for more violence he decided that it was time for Israel to leave the trip permanently he didn't ask for concessions from Palestinian leadership and though many Israelis were deeply opposed to the plan he forged ahe once again the nation royed with protests people worried about Civil War but the so-called disengagement went ahead Anyway by September of 2005 Gaza was Jew free true some had left Kicking and Screaming but they left any trace of

gaza's Jewish communities was purged one structure was left intact and that was the wall that separated Israel from the Gaza Strip travel between Gaza and well anywhere soon became a distant dream because in 2006 the Palestinians held their first elections in over a decade the PA knew they were not in a good position they knew that many of the Palestinians supported Hamas they were not surprised when Hamas won 40 4% of seats in the Palestinian legislative Council Israel the UN and the US however were shocked they shouldn't have been Palestinians were tired of the PA's

legendary corruption and inefficiency they were tired of living in poverty while PA officials pocketed hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars Hamas on the other hand provided social services and Health Care Plus devout Palestinians appreciated hamas's commitment to their religion and of course some approved of hamas's Eric around freeing Palestine if the path to Liberation was paved in blood well that was the price of Freedom the US Russia the EU and the UN demanded Hamas change their stance on Israel just recognize your neighbors right to exist stop blowing up their buses and sending Rockets

across the border and be chill Hamas refused so the Western world stopped sending Aid not that this mattered Hamas was getting more and more funding from Iran which was looking to expand its role in the region the only people who were affected were ordinary folks and Pa employees the very people that the Western world was trying to promote Israel tightened the borders and made a wave of arrests still Hamas clung to power at first the Palestinian Authority tried to work with Hamas but behind the scenes the US was exerting pressure to disband the government and

hold new elections when that didn't work they armed the PA's leading party hoping they'd be able to wrench back power from Hamas it did not go well both the PA and Hamas employed the nastiest methods they could against each other but Hamas was the last man standing at the end of this summer of violence they now controlled the entire Gaza Strip and their first order of business was attacking Israel an endless barrage through the end of 2007 more than 3,000 mortars and Rockets in 2008 Israel entered the territory in 2009 in a futile bid to

end the terror they got hundreds of rockets in response Israel and Egypt had placed Gaza under a blockade when Hamas took over in 2007 anything that went into Gaza was strictly controlled and fully inspected but the attacks just kept coming where were all these weapons coming from today that's a rhetorical question everyone knows that for the past 17 years Hamas has poured billions into its elaborate system of underground tunnels tunnels were nothing new in the region Israel had discovered the first one in 1983 back then they were used for smuggling purposes they still are but

when Hamas took over they U their game building thousands of tunnels crisscrossing from Gaza to Egypt and Israel a vast system buried multiple stories under the ground oh and in case you thought that the tunnels were in some way defensive think again they're not there to help gazin they're there to help Hamas this horrible status quo persisted for over a decade and then almost abruptly Hamas seemed to relax they released a new Charter that seemed to accept Israel's right to exist they didn't get involved when another terrorist group sent a barrage of rockets to Israel

in 2022 Israel relaxed its blockade and up the number of gazen work permits if they could relieve some of the strip's choking poverty perhaps Hamas would soften its stance there were still rocket attacks Hamas was at its core still a terrorist group but for Israelis at least life was relatively peaceful until October 7th 2023 by now you've seen the footage and heard the numbers Israelis woke up on October 7th to learn that hamas's quiet had been a ruse they'd been playing the long game and despite Israel's punishing assault on the Strip they vowed to do

it again and again and again Israel entered the strip 21 days after the invasion their aim is to end Hamas once and for all they've destroyed tunnel after tunnel killed thousands of combatants and rescued seven living hostages but Israel keeps finding new tunnels almost as fast as it destroys the old ones among the thousands and thousands killed are civilians too many of them children who did nothing wrong and though half of the hostages were brought home after negotiations more than 100 remain in Gaza it's confirmed that at least one3 maybe more are no longer alive

the IDE of spokesperson has said that the war could last through the end of 2024 meanwhile people are dying most gazin are displaced More than 70% of the strip's buildings are no longer standing hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians have been evacuated from the North and the South and no one seems to know what will happen next some Israelis are agitating for a return to Gaza they want to rebuild the communities they left behind in 2005 and everyone just wants to see this War end they want their loved ones back home they want the hostages

released hopefully alive and they want to heal after the trauma of 107 Palestinians deserve a life free of air strikes and bombings free of so-called leaders that keep them mired in decades of war and military rule like all humans they deserve a life of safety and dignity and both Israelis and Palestinians need to heal before they can ever trust one another again who will rule Gaza after the war that's anyone's guess but who owns the land it's deeply meaningful to both peoples it is at the center of both of our identities no matter who's in

charge of Gaza we are both children of this ancient land and our job is to stop watering its soil with our blood