The partially recognized and partially sovereign state of Palestine consists of two unconnected regions: the West Bank of the Jordan River, lying between Israel and Jordan, and the Gaza Strip on Israel's southwestern border. Despite the common name and identical passports of the inhabitants of these two territories, de facto their internal administration is carried out by two different organizations.

The situation on the borders of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip also differs: the first is visited by thousands of tourists, eager for Arabic flavor and biblical monuments; the latter is one of the most closed places in the world.

Two worlds

The territory of Israel near the Gaza border resembles a world from some kind of dystopia. Here, Jewish schoolchildren with backpacks walk along the trekking path, and at a distance of less than a kilometer rises a wall separating Palestinian lands. A balloon with a surveillance camera soars above the wall, in the distance - the gray silhouettes of the dense building of the settlements of Gaza.

The border on the Israeli side looks more like a modern airport terminal than a checkpoint: a building of glass and concrete, equipped with the latest security technology. On the other side of the wall, a boy in a keffiyeh drives a flock of sheep across no man's land with a stick. A few meters later, the first Arab checkpoint: concrete blocks with painted Palestinian flags, a passport control window that looks like an MAF near a metro station, and seats under a metal canopy. On the fence hangs a campaign banner with a caricature of an Israeli policeman and an inscription urging Palestinians to follow the information they provide to the "occupation police" of Israel.

The policy of complete control of the border, water and airspace of the Gaza Strip, Israel began to pursue due to regular attacks by armed groups and rocket attacks from the Palestinian side. A little over 10 years ago, the situation was, though not much, but simpler. Many local Arabs went to work in Israel, and in the Palestinian territory itself there were Jewish settlements, which, however, were guarded by Israeli soldiers. In 2005, Israel withdrew all its citizens and army from the Gaza Strip. Even the bodies from Jewish cemeteries were removed, and the synagogues built in the settlements were destroyed to avoid desecration. In 2006, Islamic fundamentalists from Hamas win parliamentary elections in four out of five Ghaz constituencies. At that time, they seemed to the locals a reasonable alternative to the corrupt ruling secular Fatah party. Feeling the support, Hamas removed representatives of rival political forces from all leadership positions in the Gaza Strip. Sometimes they were dropped in the literal sense of the word: some opponents were dealt with by throwing them off the roofs of skyscrapers. Since then, there have been no democratic elections in the Gaza Strip, so it is hardly possible to accurately assess the current level of support for the authorities by the local population. And if Fatah more or less successfully negotiated a peaceful settlement of the conflict, then Hamas simply does not recognize Israel's right to exist and considers all of its territory to be its own, but temporarily occupied.

Now there is one pedestrian checkpoint and one cargo checkpoint on the border between Gaza and Israel. If a Palestinian wants to enter Israel, he will have to submit an appropriate request and justify the purpose of the visit. The local authorities check him for reliability and make a decision. But in practice, if the purpose of the trip is not business, treatment, education or any international mission, then it is almost impossible to obtain such permission.

An alternative exit from Gaza could be the border with Egypt. When the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Cairo, to which, in particular, Hamas belongs, Egypt opened the border for people. However, after al-Sisi, hostile to the Islamists, took the presidency as a result of a military coup, the checkpoint stopped working on a permanent basis. It could now open for just a few days and to a limited number of people, then shut down again for months, leaving those who ventured to leave Gaza to have to wait even longer to return home.

survival strategy

The Gaza Strip is made up of very different areas. There are refugee camps, and war-torn corners, and there are decent enough cities with amusement parks, universities, expensive hotels and restaurants. The city of Gaza itself does not give the impression of devastation. Quite a prosperous settlement, if, of course, we make allowances for the traditional for the entire Middle East garbage on the streets, chaotic buildings and the complete absence of what is usually called a “favorable urban environment”. The streets in the center are full of cars, although a liter of gasoline here costs about $2. Gaza differs from any other Arab city only in a large number of anti-Israeli graffiti and Hamas propaganda posters calling for the liberation of Jerusalem and cracking down on enemies by all possible means, including stones and knives.

But while Islamist militants are pursuing lofty religious goals, ordinary residents have to deal with much more mundane domestic issues. One of the main problems today is an acute shortage of electricity. The volume of electricity coming from three sources - power plants in Egypt, Israel and in the Gaza Strip itself - is not always enough to cover even half of the needs.

“People here are very poor, so we can't buy enough fuel for our stations,” explains Mohammed Thabet of the public relations department of the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company. - The Egyptian and Israeli lines also have problems: sometimes it takes weeks to repair breakdowns. Schools, hospitals and other humanitarian institutions have round the clock electricity. And ordinary people have light at best 8 hours a day, but usually less than 4 hours.

Locals solve the problem in different ways: someone buys a fuel generator, others buy solar panels, and still others buy uninterruptible power supplies. But all of these options are too expensive for most of Gaza's population, so many simply have to adjust to the light schedule. As for paying for services to foreign suppliers, Mr. Thabet assures that Gaza regularly transfers money to the Palestinian authorities in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian state, located on the West Bank, and they, in turn, are already paying off the Israelis.

In February 2015, the Israel Electricity Company, which accounts for more than 60% of the Gaza Strip's electricity supply, briefly shut down some cities in the West Bank due to the debt of the Palestinian authorities. In April of this year, electricity supplies were also temporarily limited in parts of the West Bank, until an agreement was reached with Palestine on the immediate payment of part of the debt. The IEC does not directly affect prices for consumers in the Gaza Strip, and does not separate the gas debt from the amount that must be paid for electricity, considering this money as the total debt of the Palestinian Authority. At the same time, the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip continued to receive electricity, not only when their countrymen from the West Bank sat without electricity, but even during the last war in 2014, while gas rockets regularly flew to the Israeli city of Ashkelon, where the power plant is located, which actually and feeds Gaza.

To avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, Israel allows fuel for power plants to be brought into the Gaza Strip. At the same time, there is a long list of products and materials, the import of which is prohibited or under the strict control of international organizations. It contains cargo that, according to Israel, Hamas can use for military purposes: to create missiles, build bunkers and underground tunnels.

So, in order to get cement, a resident of the Gaza Strip needs to apply to local authorities and wait up to several months until his issue is decided jointly by the authorities of Gaza, Israel and the UN Middle East Agency for Relief and Works for Palestine Refugees. But even with such draconian restrictions, the Shijaya area to the east of the city, destroyed in 2014, now looks more like a huge construction site than a frontline zone.

Adly al-Sawada has been importing products to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for several years. He talks about the features of the delivery of goods “All foreign cargo that we want to bring into Gaza arrives at the Israeli port of Ashdod. If the container goes to Ramallah, it is immediately loaded onto a truck. And if the goods are intended for the Gaza Strip, then the container is opened, carefully checked, and then an Israeli driver in an Israeli car delivers the goods without a container to the checkpoint. There, the Israelis inspect it again and leave it in no man's land. Through this 300-meter zone, the goods are transported by special five cars that are always there and never enter either the Gaza Strip or Israel (the scheme for crossing the neutral strip by people is similar, but, of course, passenger taxis are used instead of trucks. - Auth. ). On Palestinian territory, the cargo is already checked by the Gaza authorities, and a local driver delivers it to the address.

That is, it costs me $400 to bring one container to Ramallah, while it costs $3,500 to bring it to Gaza with all fees and charges. At the same time, I can't raise the price of a product because people won't buy. Therefore, the difference has to be covered from the possible profit.

The only restriction for goods is the choice of the exporting country. We cannot transport products from Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Pakistan through Israel. But this only applies to food, because, for example, there are additional restrictions for electronics.”

The main way to deliver goods to the Gaza Strip, bypassing Israeli control, was underground tunnels from the Egyptian side. Some of them are so large that even cars were driven along them, and some passages were used to illegally enter the Gaza Strip, bypassing the closed checkpoint on the Egyptian border. It is clear that such underground routes were also used by Hamas for completely non-humanitarian purposes. However, with the coming to power of al-Sisi and the activation of the Islamists in the Sinai Peninsula, Cairo began to vigorously fight against the tunnels, first setting up a buffer zone in the border zone, and in September last year, it completely began to flood its border with Palestine with water in order to collapse all secret passages.

Along the coast ships of the Israeli Navy ply. They not only prevent the entry of potentially dangerous goods into Gaza, but also create obstacles for local fishermen. A fairly large number of local people work in this area. “We are told that we can go into the sea for 6 miles, but in fact we are not allowed further than 3-4 miles,” says Adel al-Sharif, a fisherman with more than forty years of experience. - They greatly narrowed the lane after the incident with Shalit (Gilad Shalit is an Israeli soldier abducted by Hamas militants in 2006. - Auth.). Before, when Israel was here, I lived richly. Earned even more doctors. We were allowed to go 12 miles, but we went even further, and they turned a blind eye to it. And now everything is different. Previously, if you violated the border, you could negotiate with the Israelis. And now - no, because for them it is a matter of security. Just swim up to the border - they shoot. If arrested, both you and your boat will be sent to Ashdod. You will be checked and released if all is well. But even in this case, then you will need to negotiate with Israeli intermediaries to bring your boat back. And that's a lot of money."

However, on March 30 of this year, Israel expanded the coastal strip to 9 nautical miles, and hundreds of fishing boats immediately began to use the new space.

In general, the Gaza Strip looks much better than one can imagine after the emotional reports of Arab children dying from lack of food and medicine. As for the rest, this place justifies its nickname "the largest prison in the world" to a certain extent. Despite the fact that there are two cordons of "protection" here: the internal Hamas and the external Israeli. And from the realization that most of these people will spend their whole lives on a small piece of land, it becomes uncomfortable. So much so that, just after leaving Gaza, you even rejoice at a pack of greedy taxi drivers who attack with their offers, barely noticing your European appearance. Because you perceive them only as a sign of an open world in which you are allowed to go anywhere.

The Gaza Strip is approximately 50 km long and 6 to 12 km wide. The total area is about 360 square kilometers.

Cities

• Abasan
• Beit Hanoun (arab. بيت حانون ‎‎)
• Gaza (Aza) (Arabic غزة ‎‎) (Hebrew עזה ‎)
• Deir al-Balah (Deir el-Balah, Deir al-Balah, Deir al-Balah)
• Rafah (Rafah) (Hebrew רפיח ‎)
• Khan Yunes (Khan Yunis)
• Jabaliya (arab. جباليا ‎‎)

Demographic statistics data

1.6 million people live on the territory of 360 km². The population density (3.9 thousand people per 1 sq. km) approximately corresponds to the level of Berlin (Germany).

The birth rate in the Gaza Strip is one of the highest in the world, with more than half of the population under the age of 15, and the population is doubling every 20-25 years. The majority of the population are Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Israeli experts believe that there is reason to doubt the truth of these data, since all indicators are based on reports from the Palestinian Authority, which "does not provide any possibility of serious verification of these data."

Among Israeli demographers there is no unanimity of opinion on this issue: Professor A. Sofer believes that these data should be used, since there are no others, but Dr. J. Etinger and Dr. B. Zimmerman (AIDRG Institute) believe (based on a comparison with emigration data, hospital birth data, etc.), that the figures are overestimated by at least a third.

Legal status

In 1947, during the division of the Mandatory Lands, the territory of Gaza was assigned to the Arab state.

According to the representative of the UN Secretary General: "the official status of the" occupied territory "of the Gaza Strip can only be changed by a decision of the UN Security Council," another UN representative said that even after the withdrawal of Israeli troops, "the UN continues to consider the Gaza Strip as occupied territory." Prior to these statements, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon refrained from answering a question about the status of the Gaza Strip after the Israeli evacuation, saying he was not authorized to answer it. The position of the United States on the status of Gaza remains unclear, but the US State Department website defines the Gaza Strip as an occupied territory.

In January 2006, the Islamist radical movement Hamas won the local elections in the sector. After a series of cleansings and skirmishes with rival factions, Hamas completely seized power - the state institutions of the Palestinian Authority and its security forces stopped functioning in the sector since July 2007 as a result of the coup committed by Hamas, although formally the Gaza Strip continues to be part of the Palestinian Authority and obey it Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. But in fact, we are talking about the existence of two separate enclaves.

In this regard, on September 19, 2007, Israel and Egypt imposed an economic blockade of the sector, the main purpose of which is to prevent the supply of weapons to the territory of Gaza, which was weakened by the decision of the Israeli government of June 20, 2010, but not stopped.

Story

For the history of the Gaza area before 1948, see History of Gaza City.

Gaza under the control of the Arab Republic of Egypt (1948-1967)

The Camp David Treaty states that Israeli troops will leave the territory of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the river. Jordan and in these territories a democratically elected autonomous Palestinian administration will be created, and a maximum of five years after this event, through negotiations, the final status of these territories should have been determined. However, the process prescribed in the Camp David Accords was started only 14 years later, in 1993, with the signing of the Oslo Accords and has not been completed until now.

Following the signing of the agreements, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat said in his speech to Parliament (Mordel):

Before the war for the rights of the Palestinian people, Egypt was a prosperous country in the Arab world. Now we are a poor country, and the Palestinians demand from us once again to fight for them until the last Egyptian soldier.

It should be noted that since the Oslo Accords, the economic situation in the Gaza Strip has deteriorated: unemployment in the Palestinian territories was less than 5 percent in the late 80s and 20 percent by the mid-90s, and the territories' gross national product fell by 36 percent between 1992 and 1996. According to the Arabs, this happened as a result of high population growth due to the birth rate and the decrease in economic ties with Israel. According to another opinion, this is due to the fact that the Gaza authorities do not want to take care of the needs of the population.

Blockade of the Gaza Strip

Rise of extremism

Gunnar Heinsohn, head of the Lemkin Institute at the University of Bremen, writes in the Wall Street Journal:

The vast majority of the population does not feel the need to do anything in order to "raise" their offspring. Most of the children are fed, clothed, vaccinated and in school thanks to the UN UNRWA. UNRWA stymies the Palestinian issue by classifying Palestinians as "refugees" - not only those who have been forced to leave their homes, but also all their offspring.

UNRWA is generously funded by the United States (31 percent) and the European Union (about 50 percent) - and only 7 percent of these funds come from Muslim sources. Thanks to such largesse from the West, almost the entire population of Gaza lives in dependence, at a rather low but stable level. One result of this unlimited charity is a never-ending population boom.

Between 1950 and 2008, the population of Gaza grew from 240,000 to 1.5 million. The West, in fact, created a new Middle Eastern people in Gaza, who, if the current trends continue, will reach three million in 2040. The West pays for food, schools, medical care and housing, while Muslim countries help with weapons. Unfettered by the hassle of earning a living, young people have plenty of time to dig tunnels, smuggle weapons, build rockets, and shoot.

Gunnar Heinsohn believes that the popularity of radical and extremist political movements in Gaza is largely due to the youth of the population of the sector.

It should be noted that high birth rates are typical not only for the Gaza Strip, but also for other developing countries, which is associated with the demographic transition. Gunnar Heinsohn describes the Gaza Strip as a classic case of his theory that an excess of young people leads to more radicalism, war and terrorism.

Shelling Israel from Gaza

In July 2006, in response to the shelling and kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas militants, the Israeli army launched an unprecedented military Operation "Summer Rains" to destroy the militants of the terrorist organizations Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and others.

In December 2006, an attempt was made on the life of Hamas Prime Minister of Palestine Ismail Haniya by Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip.

In February 2007, an agreement was reached between the leaders of Fatah and Hamas and a coalition government was briefly created.

The international community once again demanded that the new PA government recognize Israel, disarm the militants and stop the violence. Trilateral negotiations between the United States, the Palestinian Authority and Israel ended inconclusively.

After the Hamas takeover

In May-June 2007, Hamas tried to remove from power former police officers who were not subordinate to the Minister of Internal Affairs - supporters of Fatah, who at first turned out to be subordinate to the Fatah-Hamas government, and then refused to leave the civil service. In response, on June 14, the President of the Palestinian Autonomy and the leader of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, announced the dissolution of the government, introduced a state of emergency in the territory of the autonomy and took full power into his own hands. As a result of the outbreak of a bloody civil war for power, Hamas retained its positions only in the Gaza Strip, while in the West Bank of the river. Jordanian power was retained by supporters of Mahmoud Abbas. Mahmoud Abbas created the river in the West Bank. Jordan the new government and called the Hamas fighters "terrorists". Thus, Palestine split into two hostile entities: Hamas ( Gaza Strip) and Fatah (West Bank).

Breaking the fence on the border with Egypt

After another wave of shelling of Israeli territory, by order of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on January 20, 2008, the supply of electricity, food and fuel to the Gaza Strip was temporarily suspended, which caused a wave of protests around the world. But already on January 22 they were resumed.

On January 23, 2008, after several months of preliminary preparations during which the pillars of the border fence were weakened, Hamas destroyed several sections of the border fence separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt near the city of Rafah. Hundreds of thousands of Gaza residents crossed the border and broke into the territory of Egypt, where prices for food and other goods are lower. Due to a three-day cessation of Israel's supply of electricity, fuel and a number of goods, Egyptian President Husni Mubarak was forced to order Egyptian border guards to let the Palestinians into Egyptian territory, but at the same time make sure that they do not carry weapons with them. Several armed infiltrators were arrested by the Egyptian authorities and then released.

Egypt's first attempts to close the border ran into fierce resistance from Hamas militants, who carried out a series of explosions in the border area, and a few days later engaged in a shootout with border guards. But after 12 days the border was restored.

The breach of the fence also led to the penetration of several Palestinian militants into the territory of Sinai, and then into Israel, where they carried out a terrorist attack in Dimona on February 1, in which one Israeli woman was killed and another 23 people were injured.

The internal political situation in the Gaza Strip remained extremely unstable. The explosiveness of the situation was exacerbated by the daily smuggling of weapons from Egypt through the network of underground tunnels on the border with Egypt, as well as one of the highest levels of population density and unemployment in the world. According to a number of both Israeli and Palestinian observers, this has led to the transformation of the Gaza Strip into an enclave of anarchy and terrorism.

Truce between Hamas and Israel June-December 2008

In June 2008, a truce was signed between Israel and Hamas for six months. However, it lasted only until the beginning of November 2008. The parties blamed each other for breaking the truce. Immediately after the end of the truce, intensified rocket attacks on Israeli territory resumed.

Operation Cast Lead and its aftermath

On December 27, 2008, Israel launched a large-scale military operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, the purpose of which was to destroy the military infrastructure of Hamas and prevent eight years of rocket attacks on Israeli territory. . The decision to launch a large-scale operation was taken by the Israeli government after dozens of unguided rockets were fired at the territory of Izril from the Gaza Strip.

The operation caused hundreds of deaths among the Palestinian population (in the vast majority of militants), massive destruction of infrastructure, industry and the destruction of thousands of residential buildings in the sector. According to human rights organizations, civilians were often targeted by Israel deliberately, although a careful analysis of the casualty statistics showed the opposite. Human rights organizations also claimed that the destruction of Palestinian civilian sites was carried out without any military necessity, but Israel denied these accusations.

Hamas has also been accused by the UN of deliberately targeting Israeli civilians, resulting in 3 deaths. A report by the UN human rights mission led by Judge Goldstone stated that many of the actions of both Hamas and Israel during the operation could be qualified as war crimes. It should be noted, however, that this UN report was recognized by many, including the US House of Representatives, as biased, biased, directed against Israel, distorting the truth and encouraging terror.

Economy

High population density, limited land and sea access, the continued isolation of the Gaza Strip and severe security restrictions have led to a deterioration in the economic situation of the Gaza Strip in recent years.

The unemployment rate in Gaza is 40 percent. 70 percent of the sector's population lives below the poverty line.

The economy of the sector is based on small-scale production, fishing, agriculture (cultivation of citrus fruits, olives, vegetables and fruits), production of dairy products and halal beef. Prior to the outbreak of the Second Intifada, many residents of the sector worked in Israel or in businesses in Israeli settlements in the sector. With the outbreak of the intifada, and especially after Israel left the sector in 2005, this possibility disappeared. Exports of local goods have declined as a result of the blockade and the establishment of the Hamas regime, and many small businesses have gone bust. However, Israel allows the export of strawberries and flowers (primarily carnations). Fishing volumes have declined.

Crafts are developed in the Gaza Strip - textiles and embroidery, soap, mother-of-pearl products, and olive wood carvings are produced here. From the time of Israeli control, small factories built by Israeli entrepreneurs have survived in industrial centers.

Main trading partners Gaza Strip are Israel, Egypt and the PA.

Currency used in Gaza Strip- Israeli shekels and US dollars. Egyptian pounds and Jordanian dinars are also used, but to a lesser extent.

The situation is aggravated by the fact that more than half of the population of the sector are minors. As a result of the policy of the Hamas regime, which is not ready to give up its main principle - the destruction of Israel, and also does not want to make an exchange deal, returning the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, which would lead to a partial or complete lifting of the blockade, the economic situation in Gaza Strip difficult, though far from catastrophic. However, during the Israeli military operation "Cast Lead" in late 2008-early 2009, the economy of the sector suffered an additional $4 billion in damage, more than 14,000 private houses and dozens of factories were destroyed.

Footnotes

1. Spelling: Gaza Strip Lopatin V. V. Capital or lowercase? Spelling Dictionary / V. V. Lopatin, I. V. Nechaeva, L. K. Cheltsova. - M.: Eksmo, 2009. - 512 p., p. 398
2. http://israel.moy.su/publ/4-1-0-25
3. Nobel laureate Aumann calls the disengagement a "calamity"
4. Is Gaza "occupied" territory? (CNN, January 6, 2009) fckLR*The U.N. position fckLR** “In February 2008, Secretary-General Ban was asked at a media availability whether Gaza is occupied territory. "I am not in a position to say on these legal matters," he responded.
   fckLR**The next day, at a press briefing, a reporter pointed out to a U.N. "Yes, the U.N. defines Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as Occupied Palestinian Territory. No, that definition hasn"t changed," the spokesman replied.
   fckLR** Farhan Haq, spokesman for the secretary-general, told CNN Monday that the official status of Gaza would change only through a decision of the U.N. Security Council.»fckLR

   fckLR* The U.S. positionfckLR** [...] The U.S. State Department Web site also includes Gaza when it discusses the "occupied" territories. State Department spokeswoman Amanda Harper referred CNN Monday to the department"s Web site for any questions about the status of Gaza, and she noted that the Web site referred to the 2005 disengagement. When asked the department"s position on whether Gaza is still occupied , Harper said she would look into it. fckLR** She has not yet contacted CNN with any more information»]

5. Berliner Zeitung: Prospects for Hamas
6. Hamas Charter
7. The Charter of Hamas
8. Sderot Media Center. Our mission
9. Kasamas in December: Terror Records
10. Summary of rocket fire andfckLRmortar shelling in 2008
11. The blockade of the Gaza Strip broke the record of Leningrad
12. Hamas does not believe in Israeli intentions to ease blockade
13. The Rise and Fall of the All Palestine Govt Avi Shlaim

I thought that now is the time to write about the unfortunate (or ill-fated, whichever is more convenient for you) Palestinian Gaza Strip, which does not leave the newspaper pages. It would seem that something like this is happening there that excites the minds more than a million killed in Sudanese Darfur, or a hurricane in Honduras. All this is politics. It is likely that after reading this short report, supporters of the Palestinians in the Arab-Israeli conflict will say "You are biased against the Arabs", but paradoxically, Israeli readers will say the same thing "You have a pro-Arab position." How can this be? Yes, very simple. If I talk about travel, I don't give a damn about politics, I'm not in anyone's camp and I don't promote anyone's interests. I wanted to talk about Gaza - I will do it, I want to remember Honduras - I will remember it too. So -

In Gaza, I was about 150 times, or two hundred, did not count. Not a typo, indeed, while serving in the Israeli army in 1995-1998, he spent several months in these places. I did not personally fight with anyone and did not kill anyone, but only served as a driver of a patrol jeep. The division headquarters was located inside the Gush Katif block of Israeli settlements, in the neighborhood of the settlement of Neve Dkalim. Now all these details are absolutely not secret, because in 2005 Israel completed the withdrawal of troops from the Gaza Strip, as well as all Jewish settlements were evacuated. In the same year, the Islamist radicals of Hamas won the elections and the countdown began, leading to the drama on the ship.

Pointer to Israeli settlements in Gaza. Now they are gone, only the military checkpoint Kisufim remains. In the upper part there is an inscription made, obviously, by the evacuated settlers "We will remember and return!".

Frankly, when you see someone else's life through the prism of obvious confrontation and hatred, it is very difficult to give a balanced assessment of what is happening. Especially if a couple of times your patrol jeep was bombarded with Molotov Bottles, from which leaked burning kerosene leaked through the roof and quite painfully burned your leg, leaving a small scar for life. And yet it was insanely interesting to see the life of their opponents from the inside. After all, it cannot be that one and a half million people do nothing but throw stones and bottles at Sasha Lapshin (aka puerrtto)? Maybe in their free time they still read books, go to the market, make children, watch TV, treat their lower back, believe in a better life?

How can soldiers get into Gaza?

For a long time, my colleague and I hatched plans for how we could get out of the military unit and visit the Palestinian enclave. It seems that everything is nearby, the nearby city of Khan Yunes was perfectly visible, because its houses approached almost close to the dividing fence. But getting there physically was more difficult. First of all, because the military leadership, rightly fearing for our lives, did not allow us to leave the military unit on our own. If they let us go home, they took us outside the sector through the Kisufim checkpoint and dropped us off on the Israeli side at the bus stop. It should be noted that such rules were introduced literally before my appearance in Gaza, because before that, soldiers could travel to Israel using an ordinary bus with armored windows, hourly linking nearby Israeli settlements and Israel proper.

So we came up with the next plan. Go outside the military unit, supposedly buy cigarettes in an Israeli settlement, and when you go out, quickly change from a military uniform into ordinary clothes. Then take the bus with the settlers and go outside the perimeter. No sooner said than done. And here we are on the bus with the settlers. We leave the block of settlements with a checkpoint at the exit, then less than 10 kilometers through the area, which can only be called "plasticine": the highway winds through sand dunes, randomly and chaotically built up with Arab houses, grazing cattle, mountains of garbage. And the constant observation towers every kilometer is control over the highway connecting the settlements with Israel. Here the bus goes quickly and without stops and there is nothing left but to wait for the first stop. And here is the next settlement of Kfar Darom, at the entrance to which the bus stops at the checkpoint. This is where we exit. It is noteworthy that a few years later I again happened to visit this place, after the end of the service, but that's a completely different story.

Tourists in Gaza?

In 1997, the situation was as follows: in power in Gaza was the Fatah movement, otherwise known as the PLO. The late Yasser Arafat was at the head of this organization. Palestinian police, armed with Kalashnikovs, controlled the cities, while the Israeli army controlled the roads. Formally, there were no bans on visiting the Gaza Strip, but anyone who had such an idea would have caused surprise and indignation among the Israelis "Are you crazy? There are only terrorists!". It is noteworthy that all this was before the real terrorists, the Hamas movement, came to power. What were we risking as soldiers in disguise? To a greater extent, the fact that our command finds out about this is not to pass us a military prison. It's certainly unpleasant, but much less painful than being lynched if one of the extremists inside Gaza finds out about it.

Who did we pretend to be? Tourists? Strange tourists, because tourism in the Gaza Strip never existed. Any foreigner on the street is either a UN observer or a diplomat. There is no third. Hypothetically, a completely lost backpacker could have come here, but this is such a rare occurrence that it is not worth talking about it at all. Accordingly, we needed a legend for those who would probably ask who we are. The legend came up quite easily. My buddy had a British passport issued by the British Consulate in Jerusalem. The reader will be surprised - it's so obvious that such a passport could only be issued to an Israeli resident with dual citizenship! That's right, that's why the legend was invented like this - we are employees of the British consulate, therefore the passport was issued there. To the question why your passport is not diplomatic, the answers were like this - because we are just chauffeurs at the consulate, we are not diplomats at all. Sounds relatively believable?

Gaza Strip

Imagine a segment 40 kilometers long and 4 to 12 wide. Let's enclose it all with a fence. Now let's add sand there, it's still a desert. We will set up tens of thousands of houses absolutely chaotically in the desert, drop a million donkeys with carts there, then carefully cover everything with a solid layer of garbage and finally install 1.7 million people there. Here's the Strip in two sentences. Of course, in the center of the enclave there are 9-storey buildings and even three rather luxurious hotels, not to mention a rather elegant embankment full of restaurants and cafes. Servants of the Palestinian people live in blocks along the Gaza embankment, whose palaces Rublyovka will envy: marble stairs, columns in the ancient Greek style, machine gunners along the perimeter. But these are rather small islands of well-being, because 99% of the territory of Gaza is exactly the same as I described it above.

Now I'm a little abstracted from the trip 13 years ago and I will say from myself today - Gaza is not a place for those who are looking for sights. There are no castles, ancient cathedrals, museums. There is not even nature here - the area is flat as a table, built up by 80%, and where it is not built up, it is littered. But Gaza will certainly captivate those who are interested in the hot spots of the world and those who are interested in the problems of the modern Middle East. It is extremely dangerous to go there now, because with the coming to power of Hamas, things began to decline sharply, although, it would seem, where is it even worse? Sheer chaos, where you will almost certainly be mistaken for a provocateur with all the ensuing consequences. However, there is no way to get into Gaza except from Egypt, unless there is a desire to join the human rights activists rushing there from the sea, more like provocateurs.

Yet Gaza is not only about politics and violence. I would even say that this is absolutely not politics and not violence. 1.7 million people cannot be villains. Man is an emotional being who loves pretentious epithets. At one time, I listened on TV to the statements of the now destroyed Chechen field commander Umarov, "We will drown Moscow in blood." I wanted to ask, dear, what are you talking about? Why are you climbing up to me with your vulgar squabbles, I can’t find a job for half a year without you, and you are also going to drown me. How not ashamed? I experienced the same strange and distant feeling when I watched a medium-sized demonstration in Tehran in 2008 with the burning flags of the United States and Israel. Watching this fascinating action from the outside, I wanted to ask, "Comrades, do you really have nothing else to do, except to go and burn some rags in the middle of the working day?" This world is strange: everyone is yelling at something, scolding someone, splashing with saliva. And life, meanwhile, passes by. However, this is a lyric.

Below is a small selection of photographs taken in Gaza City in the spring of 1997. I want to say that the photos were taken on a film camera and then scanned by me for a digital version. As you can see, life goes on as usual and the usual household chores -

And finally, your obedient servant on the street in Khan Younes (south of the Gaza Strip) in 1997. An hour after this photo, I had to change clothes to khaki colors and return to the service. Boy-boy, as if not me at all. How much water has flowed under the bridge since then, and countries have been circled -

­ Over the long years of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Gaza Strip has turned from a place of peripheral battles into a territory that attracts special attention of the world media. And it all started with the actions of the Israeli army units against the Fidains and militants of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Despite military superiority, Israel failed to achieve a complete victory over the enemy, and during the Six-Day War, the Gaza Strip again became an arena of confrontation ...

The peace agreements of 1949, which ended the first Arab-Israeli war, secured the Egyptian protectorate over the territory of the Gaza Strip. Declaring plans to create an Arab state in Palestine and concern for the Palestinian Arabs, the Egyptian authorities turned the Gaza Strip into a "gray zone", whose inhabitants did not receive Egyptian citizenship.

Map of the Gaza Strip
Source: guide-israel.ru

Israeli army against the units of the fedayeen

The Egyptians used the territory of the Gaza Strip to train groups of militants (the so-called fidais) who committed sabotage and terrorist acts against the Israelis. The terrorist camps, which began to be created back in 1948, were also located in Jordan, but it was the Gaza Strip that became the main base of the militants, and they themselves were subordinate to Egyptian military intelligence. The three largest military camps were located on the Mediterranean coast to the west of Gaza City.

Official Israeli historiography considers the revanchist policy of Egypt after the defeat in the war of 1947-1949 to be the only reason for the start of the Fidains. However, according to Israeli researcher Benny Maurice, who belongs to the group of so-called "new historians", the reason for the appearance of the fedayeen was also the brutal treatment of Arabs who illegally entered Israel by the Israeli military.

Map of fidayeen raids from Gaza and the West Bank
Source: mapper.3bb.ru

From 1949 to 1956, the Fidains killed and wounded 1,300 Israelis, damaged numerous military and civilian installations, and destroyed large areas of crops. Israel responded to the actions of terrorists with similar raids, without hesitation calling them "punitive operations." The objective of such operations was the destruction of military camps and the destruction of terrorists with a minimum number of affected civilians. The Israeli General Staff considered peaceful Palestinians as potential allies, believing that the actions of the IDF would lead to an uprising of Palestinian Arabs against the fedayeen and the Egyptian authorities.

In 1955, Palestinian terror against the Israelis reached unprecedented levels, but Israel did not dare to openly confront Egypt until October 1956. The reason for this was the outdated weapons of the IDF, which was enough to defeat the Arabs in 1948, but which looked hopelessly backward after the conclusion of the Egyptian-Czechoslovak arms supply agreement in September 1955. Under this agreement, Egypt received 230 tanks, 200 armored personnel carriers, 100 self-propelled artillery mounts, about five hundred artillery systems and two hundred military aircraft, as well as a number of submarines, torpedo boats and destroyers. According to historian Gennady Isaev, the catalyst for the signing of this treaty was the so-called "raid on Gaza" on February 28, 1955 - a punitive operation by the Israelis, which resulted in the death of Egyptian soldiers. This operation did not anger the world community and did not lead to any negative consequences for Israel. For this reason, the actual agenda in Egypt was to improve the combat capability of the army, which was carried out thanks to the supply of weapons and military equipment from Czechoslovakia.

In 1956, Israel nevertheless began a war with Egypt, which went down in history under the name of the Suez Crisis. The terrorist activities of the fedayeen became a formal pretext for the start of the war and only one of its causes. A more compelling reason was the Egyptian blockade of the Tyrrhenian Strait and the Suez Canal for Israeli ships, which was established in several stages during 1953-1956 and deprived Israel of the shortest sea route to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

On July 26, 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal, which hit the economic interests of Great Britain and France, making these countries situational allies of Israel in the fight against Egypt. On October 22, in the French city of Sevres, secret agreements were signed between Israel, France and Great Britain, according to which Israel was to attack Egypt from the east, and France and Great Britain were to send their troops into the Suez Canal zone, explaining this by protecting their economic interests.

Gaza Strip« for a snack»

When planning military operations against the Egyptian army and the Fidains on the territory of the Sinai Peninsula, Israel decided to start them by sending landing groups behind enemy lines. The paratroopers were to encircle and block the positions of the Egyptians, cut communications, and then, connecting with the infantry and tank units, deliver a decisive blow to the Egyptians, capturing the key heights of Sinai. Only after mastering most of the peninsula, the IDF General Staff was going to take over the Gaza Strip. The operation to capture it was seen by the Israelis as the easiest task in the entire campaign, so the mobilization of soldiers who were to fight in the Gaza Strip began just four days before the offensive.

On the night of October 29-30, 1956, the Israelis landed the first landing group at the Mitla Pass, starting a military campaign in the Sinai. On October 31, French and British troops entered the war. In the evening of the same day, the Israelis launched an assault on the Egyptian fortified area of ​​Rafah, located on the border of Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The defense of Rafah and the neighboring city of El Arish was held by six infantry battalions, two companies of a motorized border battalion, an artillery regiment, an anti-tank battery and an air defense battery. To capture Rafah and El Arish, the Israeli General Staff allocated two brigades - the 1st Infantry and the 27th Armored. On the night of October 31 to November 1, the Israeli Air Force and Navy fired on the positions of the Egyptians from the sea and from the air, and at 3:00 the offensive of the ground troops began. By the morning of November 1, Rafah and El-Arish had passed into the hands of the Israelis.

On November 2, at 6:00 am, the 11th Infantry Brigade, which included two infantry battalions and was reinforced by an armored tactical group from the 37th Armored Brigade, launched an assault on the Gaza Strip. They were opposed by the 8th division of the Egyptian army, whose strength did not exceed 10,000 people. The defense of the Egyptians was divided into two sections: northern and southern. The key point of the northern section was the city of Gaza, the southern one was the city of Khan Yunis. Several more Egyptian garrisons were scattered along the entire border with Israel.

After the loss of Rafah and El Arish, the morale of the Egyptians fell, and the poor training of the soldiers did not allow them to fight successfully outside their fortifications. For these reasons, the Israelis quickly captured the Gaza Strip: some Egyptian units did not wait for the enemy to attack and immediately laid down their arms. Already at 13:30, the soldiers of the 11th brigade liberated the entire sector from the enemy and connected with the 1st brigade, located in Rafah. Israeli losses were 11 killed and 65 wounded. In addition, two Israeli tanks and one armored vehicle were damaged.

Map of the fighting during the Suez Crisis of 1956
Source: dic.academic.ru

The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, to whom the Egyptians distributed weapons in the hope that they would start a guerrilla war against the Israelis, did not resist. As for the Fidains, some of them were captured, and the rest disappeared among the local population. Thirty years after the Suez Crisis, a dispute broke out between Israel and Egypt over war crimes in the Sinai and Gaza Strip committed in 1956. According to the Arabs, as well as a number of Israeli historians and politicians of the "left" wing, the Israelis shot hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war. In turn, Israel recognizes the facts of the execution of prisoners of war by both sides, but emphasizes that we are talking not about Egyptian soldiers, but about Fidains, and not in peacetime, but in wartime.

Lightning Throw

As in the previous conflict, during the Six-Day War of 1967, the capture of the Gaza Strip by the Israelis was preceded by fighting in Rafah and El Arish. A railroad passed through El Arish, connecting Gaza and the main supply base for Egyptian troops in the Sinai Peninsula, and Rafah has traditionally been the most protected settlement on the border of the Gaza Strip. During the 1956 campaign, the Israeli military managed to carefully study the geographical and infrastructural features of the Sinai Peninsula, which facilitated the implementation of tactical tasks in the Six Day War.

On June 5, 1967, at 08:15, the armored units of Brigadier General Israel Tal, numbering 250-300 tanks, launched an offensive on Rafah and El Arish, which were defended by the 7th Egyptian Infantry Division, reinforced by an artillery brigade and a division of 100-mm guns. In addition, the approaches to the positions of the Egyptians were protected by minefields.

General Tal took two roundabout maneuvers at once. One of his brigade launched an offensive against the city of Khan Yunis, adjacent to Rafah, which was out of range of enemy artillery. The second Israeli brigade moved south to bypass the minefields and hit the rear of the Egyptian artillery units. The Israeli advance towards Khan Yunis was accompanied by heavy Egyptian artillery fire, resulting in the destruction of six Israeli tanks in the first minutes of the battle. However, the speed and onslaught of the Israelis determined the outcome of the battle - Khan Yunis was taken.

At this time, the second Israeli brigade, having destroyed forty Egyptian tanks, was surrounded. A fierce battle ensued, during which, according to Tal, the brigade commander “I fired a machine gun with one hand, holding a microphone in the other hand”. A reserve battalion of motorized infantry was sent to help the encircled, as well as the "northern" brigade, which ended the fighting in Khan Yunis. The battle ended two hours after dark with the victory of the Israeli army.

After a breakthrough in the Rafah-El-Arish sector, Israeli troops entered the territory of the Gaza Strip and began a leisurely but successful advance inland, knocking out the enemy from his positions. By noon on June 6, the Egyptians and Palestinians capitulated.

« Suitcase without a handle»

Since 1967, the Gaza Strip has been under Israeli control. The Israeli government treated the Arab population with the same indifference as Egypt - the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip did not receive Israeli citizenship, but were forced to cede part of their land for the construction of Jewish settlements, farms and enterprises.

In 1978, during the signing of the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt at Camp David, the parties agreed that the territory of the Gaza Strip, as well as the West Bank of the Jordan River, would become part of the future Palestinian Authority. Some historians claim that during the negotiations, the Israeli side proposed that the Gaza Strip become part of Egypt, but the Arabs refused such a prospect. The process of implementing the Camp David Accords began only in 1993 after the signing of the Oslo Accords and has not been completed to date.

The Gaza Strip is a territory on the Mediterranean coast allocated by the UN for the creation of the Arab state of Palestine.

From 1948 (after the first Arab-Israeli war) to 1967 it was occupied by the Arab Republic of Egypt, and after the Six Day War from 1967 to 2005 - by Israel.

The area is considered one of the most densely populated in the world. The Gaza Strip is 54 km long and only 12 km wide. At the same time, on an area of ​​363 sq. km is home to about 1.5 million Palestinians. The main source of income for local residents was the export of agricultural products, mainly citrus fruits, to Israel. However, after the Al-Aqsa Intifada began in 2001, Israel practically closed the borders.

Cities of the Gaza Strip: Abasan, Beit Hanoun, Gaza (Aza), Deir el Balah (Deir el Balah, Deir al Balah, Deir al Balah), Rafah (Raffah), Khan Younes (Khan Younis), Jabalia.

On August 15, 2005, as part of the unilateral disengagement plan, Israel began evacuating 8,500 Jewish settlers and troops from the area. By August 22, all Jewish settlers had left the Gaza Strip. On September 12, the last Israeli soldier was withdrawn, ending 38 years of Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip.

In the first democratic elections held on January 25, 2006 in Gaza for the Palestinian Legislative Assembly, Hamas unexpectedly won 74 out of 133 seats, which caused an international crisis. After the victory, Hamas refused to recognize the agreements previously concluded by the Palestinians with Israel and to disarm their militants. As a result, the international community launched a financial boycott of Palestine.

Hamas found itself in a confrontation with Fatah, whose representatives mainly consisted of the government of the Autonomy, and also continued shelling the territory of Israel. Hamas militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier, which was the reason for the start of Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip.

In February 2007, an agreement on Palestinian unity was reached between the leaders of Fatah and Hamas and a coalition government was created.

The international community once again demanded that the new Palestinian government recognize Israel, disarm the militants and stop the violence. Trilateral talks between the United States, the Palestinian Authority and Israel ended inconclusively. In June 2007, Hamas took power militarily in the Gaza Strip and announced its intention to create an Islamic state there. In response, the head of the Palestinian Authority, the leader of the opposing Fatah group, Mahmoud Abbas, on June 14 announced the dissolution of the government dominated by Hamas, declared a state of emergency in the region and took full power into his own hands. Experts started talking about the split of Palestine into two hostile entities.

PA leader Mahmoud Abbas set up a new government in the West Bank and called Hamas fighters terrorists."

In October 2007, Israel declared the Gaza Strip a "hostile state entity" and began a partial economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, intermittently cutting off power supplies, cutting off energy supplies, and so on.

Along with this, in the West Bank of the Jordan River, Israel is pursuing a policy of "creeping annexation", that is, the creation of Israeli settlements on the territory determined by a UN decision for a Palestinian state. In December 2007 in the Jewish settlements of Judea and Samaria