A brief history of Gaza's 75 years of woe

END OF BRITISH RULE

Violence intensified between Jews and Arabs as British colonial rule came to an end in the late 1940s, culminating in war between the new State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in May 1948. Tens of thousands of Palestinians took refuge in Gaza, a 40km coastal strip the invading Egyptian army had seized, extending from the Sinai to just south of Ashkelon.

EGYPTIAN MILITARY RULE

Egypt held the Gaza Strip in the 1950s and '60s under a military governor, allowing Palestinians to work and study in Egypt. Palestinian "fedayeen" mounted attacks into Israel, drawing reprisals. The United Nations set up a refugee agency, UNRWA, for the region's Palestinian refugees.

WAR AND ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION

Israel captured the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. With the Egyptians gone, many Gazans took jobs in agriculture, construction and services inside Israel. Israeli troops administered the territory and guarded the settlements that Israel built in the following decades - a source of growing Palestinian resentment.

FIRST PALESTINIAN UPRISING, HAMAS FORMED

Palestinians launched their first intifada, or uprising, in December 1987 after an Israeli truck crashed into a vehicle carrying Palestinian workers in a Gaza' refugee camp, killing four. Stone-throwing protests, strikes and shutdowns followed. Seizing the angry mood, the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood created an armed Palestinian branch, Hamas, based in Gaza, which became a rival to Yasser Arafat's secular Fatah party.

OSLO ACCORDS

Israel and the Palestinians signed a historic peace accord in 1993 that led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians were given limited control in Gaza, and Jericho in the West Bank. The Oslo process envisaged Palestinian statehood after five years, but that never happened. Israel accused the Palestinians of reneging on security agreements, and Israel's continued settlement building angered Palestinians. Hamas and Islamic Jihad carried out bombings to try to derail the peace process, leading Israel to impose more restrictions on movement of Palestinians out of Gaza. Hamas also picked up on growing Palestinian criticisms of corruption, nepotism and economic mismanagement by Arafat's inner circle.

SECOND INTIFADA

In 2000, Israeli-Palestinian relations sank to a new low with the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada. It ushered in a period of suicide bombings and shooting attacks by Palestinians, and Israeli air strikes, demolitions, no-go zones and curfews.

ISRAEL EVACUATES ITS GAZA SETTLEMENTS

In August 2005, Israel removed all its troops and settlers from Gaza, which was by then completely fenced off by Israel. The settlements' removal led to greater freedom of movement within Gaza, and a "tunnel economy" boomed as armed groups, smugglers and entrepreneurs quickly dug scores of tunnels into Egypt.

ISOLATION UNDER HAMAS

In 2006, Hamas scored a surprise victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections and then seized full control of Gaza, overthrowing forces loyal to Arafat's successor, President Mahmoud Abbas. The result led to cuts in international aid to Hamas-controlled areas due to the group being considered a terrorist organisation, and to Israel and Egypt imposing tougher restrictions on the movement of goods and people from the enclave. Israeli air strikes crippled Gaza's electricity supply. Again isolated, Gaza's economy went into reverse.

CONFLICT CYCLE

Gaza's economy has suffered repeatedly in the cycle of conflict, attack and retaliation between Israel and Palestinian militant groups. Before 2023, some of the worst fighting was in 2014, when Hamas and other groups launched rockets at Israeli cities. Israel carried out air strikes and artillery bombardment that devastated neighbourhoods in Gaza. More than 2100 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians. Israel put the number of its dead at 67 soldiers and six civilians.

SURPRISE ATTACK

Israel believed it was containing a war-weary Hamas by providing economic incentives to Gazan workers, but on October 7, Hamas gunmen launched a surprise attack on Israel, rampaging through towns, killing hundreds, and taking dozens of hostages back to Gaza. Israel took revenge, hammering Gaza with air strikes and razing entire districts in some of the worst bloodletting in the 75 years of conflict.

Australian Associated Press