Living in the World’s Biggest Prison: The Gaza Strip
Imagine a prison so vast it houses over 2 million people, with its walls stretching 25 miles long and 7 miles wide, encompassing an entire populace. This isn’t fiction; it’s the reality for the residents of the Gaza Strip, often referred to as the world's largest open-air prison.
Gaza is a narrow piece of Palestinian land, nestled between Egypt, the Mediterranean Sea, and Israel. Its history of isolation dates back to the early ‘90s when Israel began restricting access to and from the territory. Overcrowded and under constant surveillance, Gaza's population density surpasses even the most congested urban areas, tripling that of cities like Detroit.
The majority of Gazans are refugees, displaced during the establishment of Israel in 1948. They fled their homes for safety, never to return as Israel has since prohibited their repatriation. Following occupation in 1967, Israel implemented strict military rule and eventually a closure policy in the ‘90s, limiting movement for Gazans and preventing others from entering.
The turning point was in 2006 after Hamas, a group with a military wing opposing Israeli occupation, won elections and assumed control of Gaza. Israel escalated its blockade, severely restricting electricity, medical supplies, and even calculating a minimum calorie intake for residents to avoid mass starvation – a strategy to exert pressure without causing famine.
Consequences of the blockade are devastating: Gaza has spiraled into economic despair with staggering unemployment and widespread poverty. Infrastructure is crippled, with essential construction materials barred from entry, leading to untreated sewage spilling into the sea. The United Nations ominously predicted that Gaza would become uninhabitable by 2020, but conditions only deteriorated.
Periodic military assaults by Israel aim to curtail Hamas' capabilities, claiming the lives of thousands of civilians and obliterating residential areas. Despite the stated intentions, the aftermath is a population trapped in an endless cycle of destruction and reconstruction, with Israel controlling the inflow of rebuilding materials.
Egypt, an ally of Israel, has also contributed to the siege, intermittently sealing its border with Gaza and obliterating supply tunnels. Gazans, in desperate ingenuity, had once established an underground network for essential goods, but this lifeline has been mostly cut off.
Half of Gaza’s residents are children. They've grown up in darkness, literal and metaphorical, with limited electricity, enduring bombings, and the omnipresent knowledge that opportunities for work or travel are a distant dream. For them, Gaza is not just a home but a relentless enclosure, a prison where the term freedom holds little to no meaning.