Many of the residents of the Gaza Strip who these days return to their homes only find rubble.
Samira Abdalá Nasser recounted that his two-story home near Beit Hanoun was hit by an explosion during the latest escalation of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
“We are back in our homes and we don’t have a place where sit down, we don’t have water, we don’t have electricity, we don’t have beds, we don’t have anything, ”the young woman told the agency Reuters .
“We are back in our houses totally destroyed.”
Despite scenes like this, the Gazans welcomed with relief the announcement of the ceasefire that came into force last Friday and put an end to the days of cross attacks.
The The first convoys with humanitarian aid arrived in the small territory hours after the end of the violence.
They transported medicines , Food and gasoline .
Thus begins a recovery that, according to experts, will require time and money.
“It will take years, if not decades, to recover from the damage inflicted in less than two weeks,” said Fabrizio Carboni, Middle East director at the International Committee of the Red Cross.
More of 250 people died in those 11 days of violence, 243 in Gaza and 13 in Israel.
And more than 100, 000 people had to flee their homes in the Strip, ruled de facto by the militant group Hamas.
Almost 800, 000 people did not have access to drinking water, the N agency noted. United Nations for Children, Unicef.
Margaret Harris, a WHO spokeswoman, demanded that immediate access to health personnel and supplies be allowed, and warned that health facilities in the territory will be outnumbered by thousands of injured.
For years, Gaza has been subjected by Egypt and Israel to strict restrictions on the movement of people and goods; Both countries justify the measure because of the danger that Hamas will obtain weapons.
What is the history of this place, what human rights organizations qualify as the largest open-air prison in the world ?
Land of occupations
In September 1987, the then Israeli Prime Minister Isaac Rabin, assassinated by an extremist Jew in 1993, commented to an American delegation: to happen, so we have to find a solution. ”
Almost 30 years later, that solution does not appear.
This narrow territory facing the Mediterranean Sea, Home to about 2 million people, it has a long history of sieges and occupations dating back 4, 000 years ago.
Sandwiched between Israel to the north and Egypt to the south, the Gaza Strip has about 40 kilometers in length and 10 km wide.
It has been ruled, destroyed and repopulated by various dynasties, empires and peoples, from Ancient Egypt -hundreds of years before Christ- until falling into the hands of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.
It was conquered by Ale Jandro Magno, the Roman Empire or the Muslim general Amr ibn al-As, changing religious faith and alternating periods of prosperity and decline.
Gaza was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1917, year in which it was under the command of the British, who undertook to facilitate the formation of a unified Arab kingdom.
British Mandate
During the First World War, the British and Turks reached an agreement for the future of the Gaza Strip and most of the Asian Arab territories that belonged to the Ottoman Empire.
But during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 the The victorious European powers prevented the creation of the promised unified Arab kingdom and established a series of mandates that allowed them to divide up and protect the entire region.
Thus, the Gaza Strip became part of the British Mandate for Palestine, authorized by the League of Nations, which lasted between Y 1948.
Wars and distribution of territories
After the end After the Second World War, the British decided to transfer the decision on Palestine to the newly created United Nations (UN).
The body approved in 1947 the resolution 181 by which Palestine was divided as follows: the 55% of the territory for the Jews, Jerusalem under international control and the rest for the Arabs (including the Gaza Strip).
This resolution, which entered into force in May 1948, ended the British Mandate of Palestine and gave rise to the state of Israel.
Ca if the fighting began immediately, leading to the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
The conflict caused hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who ended up settling in the Gaza Strip.
With the signing of the armistice, Gaza was occupied and administered by Egypt until 1967, year in which the Six Day War broke out that faced Israel with an Arab coalition formed by the United Arab Republic – former official denomination of Egypt and Syria -, Jordan and Iraq.
After the victory in this conflict Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, unleashing a series of violent clashes that continue to this day.
The first intifada (uprising) of the Palestinians against the Israelis arose in Gaza in 1987, the same year that the Islamist group Hamas was founded.
Later it was extended to the other occupied territories.
The Oslo Accords from 1993 between Israelis and Palestinians gave rise to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and granted it limited autonomy to Gaza and parts of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli withdrawal
Israel withdrew its troops and about 7, 000 Settlers of the Strip Strip in 2005, after a second and much more violent intifada.
.
The year later, Hamas achieved a landslide victory in the Palestinian elections.
This unleashed a violent power struggle in 2007 between Hamas and the Fatah party, led by the president of the PNA, Mahmoud Abbas.
The militant group was victorious in Gaza and has remained in power in the Strip ever since, surviving three wars and a blockade of 14 years.
The lock
Israel and Egypt imposed the current blockade after Hamas came to power.
The Palestinians face severe movement restrictions that make it difficult for them to travel to work, study or visit family.
Additional restrictions were imposed last year to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
The closures, along with years of bad government and Hamas’s long litigation with the PNA, have devastated the Gaza’s economy, where the unemployment rate hovers around 50%.
Power cuts are a daily occurrence in Gaza.
Before this latest confrontation, households in the Strip received electricity in eight-hour rotations.
The last ata that have damaged electrical cables and disrupted gasoline supplies.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), most homes They only have electricity for three hours a day.
The Strip gets most of its electricity from Israel, plus some inputs from Gaza’s only power plant and a small amount from Egypt.
Tunnel network
Near a 80% of Gaza’s population depends on international aid, according to the United Nations, and nearly a million people depend on daily food aid.
To try and Through the blockade, Hamas built a network of tunnels that it uses to smuggle goods into the Strip and also as an underground command center.
Israel views these tunnels as a threat and often targets them of airstrikes.
Overcrowding and damaged houses
Gaza has one of the highest population densities in the world.
According to the UN, almost 600, 000 refugees live in eight crowded camps in the territory.
On average there are more than 5, 700 people per square kilometer, very similar to London’s population density, but the figure goes up to more than 9, 000 in Gaza City.
Israel declared a defense zone along the border at 2010 to protect against rocket attacks and incursions by Islamist militants.
This delimitation reduced the amount of land available for housing or farms.
Health services under pressure
Gaza’s public health system is in a precarious situation for several reasons.
OCHA says that the blockade of Israel and Egypt, a lower investment of the PNA in health and the internal political conflict between the PNA – responsible for health care in the Palestinian territories – and Hamas are responsible.
The UN helps managing 22 ce health centers. But several hospitals and clinics were damaged or destroyed in previous clashes with Israel.
Gaza patients who need treatment in hospitals in the West Bank or East Jerusalem must first be approved by the PNA and then have need to get exit passes approved by the government of Israel.
On 2019, the approval rate for patient requests to leave the Gaza Strip was 65 %.
In recent months, the health situation has been aggravated by the coronavirus.
In April, a rise in infections led to about 3, 000 new cases per day in Gaza. More than have been reported , cases since the beginning of the pandemic and more of 946 people have died from the virus.
WHO warns that border restrictions not only limit access to life and death treatment for victims of hostilities, but also hinder the response to the coronavirus.
Lack of water
Most of Gazans suffer from water shortages.
Although most Gazans households are connected to a water network, the OCHA says that families received water only for six to eight hours every four days in 2017 due to lack of electricity.
This has been further reduced by recent attacks.
WHO established the minimum daily water needs in 100 liters per person, which includes drinking water , wash, cook and bathe.
In Gaza, the average consumption is about 88 liters.
Wastewater is another problem.
Although the 78% of homes are connected to public sewage networks, treatment plants are overrun.
The OCHA says that more than 100 million liters of raw or partially treated wastewater are pumped to the Mediterranean daily.
Added to these difficulties is the high rate of youth unemployment, the constant fear of a possible attack and the lack of future prospects.
Remember that you can receive notifications from BBC News Mundo. Download the latest version of our app and activate them so as not to miss our best content.