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This large map shows the 360 square kilometers of the Gaza Strip, a small but troubled region bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt, and Israel. According to the World Factbook, over one million people live in the Gaza Strip, and most are of Palestinian Arab ethnicity. Over 6,000 Israeli settlers also live in Gaza. Before 1948, the Gaza Strip, as well as the adjacent West Bank area of the Jordan River, and what is now the state of Israel, were all known as Palestine. This area had been under the jurisdiction of Great Britain since World
War I, and before that was part of the Ottoman Empire. Zionism, a political movement advocating the establishment of a Jewish nation-state in the land of Israel/Palestine, was born in Europe in the late 19th century as a response to centuries of anti-Semitism and persecution. In the early years of the 20th century, European Jews began to immigrate to Palestine, establishing new communities. In these years, the Middle East region was a pawn in the territorial agendas of competing super-powers. In 1917, the British Foreign Minister announced Britain's support for the establishment of "a Jewish national home in Palestine." Palestinians viewed this as a betrayal of Britain's promise to help establish an independent
Arab state there. Clashes between Jewish settlers and native Palestinians became more frequent as the immigrant population increased. After World War II, Britain decided to pull out of the area due to hostilities and turned the matter over to the United Nations. In 1947, the U.N. General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab. From 1948 to 1949 war erupted between the new nation of Israel and its Arab neighbors. The war ended with an armistice that divided the land into three parts: the independent state of Israel; the West Bank, occupied by Jordan; and the coastal plain around the city of Gaza -- called the Gaza Strip -- controlled by Egypt. No Palestinian Arab state was ever created. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan, Gaza and
the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria during the Six Day War in 1967. They established a military administration to govern the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The Oslo Accords of 1993 resulted in a mutual recognition of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and an agreement that Israel would withdraw from Gaza after a five-year transitional period. During the interim, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were allowed to create the Palestinian Authority to govern this area. In 1996, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat was elected its president. Unfortunately, negotiations between Israel and the PLO since 1993 have been far from satisfactory for either side. The Gaza Strip continues to be the scene of violence and bloodshed.
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