View before the siege of Gaza City – Wikimedia Commons.
Architecture – International diplomacy and head-of-states’ visit unsuccessfully urged Israel to a ceasefire. Without potable water, no fuel nor power to run hospitals, no chance to deliver medicine or food supplies, and no escape route for civilians, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza City becomes more unsustainable every day.
- RELATED STORIES: find out more about the conflict in the Middle East.
Photo by Hosny Salah, Creative Commons.
ABOUT GAZA – With a population of 652,500 people, half of whom are under 25, Gaza City is Palestine’s second city and the world’s most densely populated area, with 36,296 people per mile. It was founded in 1,600 B.C., and it thrived under the Roman Empire and the Christian Roman Empire. It became Muslim in 635 A.D. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the first half of the XX Century, The Gaza Strip was under British influence until 1948.
When, in 2006, the Hamas extremist party won local elections with its antisemitic missions, Israel and Egypt took control of the territory’s borders, de facto isolating it from the rest of the world. Today, 50% of the population is unemployed, 10% is illiterate, and 80% depends on Humanitarian Aid. With weak infrastructure and no trade partners, the Gaza economy is totally dependent on UNCHRA, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Damage in Gaza Strip, October 2023 – Photo by Naaman Omar Apaimages, Wiki Palestine, Creative Commons.
What’s left of Gaza today? According to the Ministry of Housing in Gaza, on October 21, at least 42% (164,756) of all housing units in the Gaza Strip have been either destroyed or damaged since the start of the hostilities.The Media Office also confirmed that Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip has damaged 192 mosques where civilians often find shelter from the bombs. A war rages on, UNESCO World Heritage sites lie in ruins, such as the Qasr Al Basha in Gaza City, where Napoleon Bonaparte slept for several nights during his campaign in Egypt and Palestine.
About 1.4 million internally displaced people (IDPs) are estimated, with nearly 566,000 sheltering in 148 UNCHRA-designated emergency shelters (DES) in increasingly dire conditions. There are also reports of displaced families returning to northern Gaza due to ongoing bombardments and an inability to meet basic needs in the south.
According to a Guardian analysis of satellite imagery of the northern Gaza Strip in the aftermath of heavy bombardments, more than 1,000 craters are visible from space within approximately 10 square kilometres. Read more…
So far, only a handful of the hostages kidnapped on October 7 have been freed. Thanks to a special passage in the south, a few hundred Palestinians with double passports have managed to cross the border into Egypt safely. On November 7th, exactly one month after the massacre, the Israel Defense Force is ready to enter via land to begin a new phase of the conflict.
