The document provides background information on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. It discusses 11 key facts: 1) Gaza is separate from the West Bank; 2) Gaza City is densely populated; 3) Israel used to occupy Gaza; 4) Hamas seeks to replace Israel; 5) Hamas was democratically elected; 6) Other militant groups in Gaza fire rockets; 7) Israel's blockade creates a humanitarian crisis; 8) Israel and Hamas have fought multiple wars; 9) Hamas receives rockets from Iran; 10) Tunnels are important for smuggling; 11) Egypt controls the sole above-ground crossing. The conflict was triggered by Hamas firing rockets and Israel launching airstrikes in response.

1. The conflict in Gaza
June –July 2014
McAuley High School Social Sciences Department
July 2014

2. 11 Crucial Facts to Understand about the
Israel Gaza Crisis - Vox
• The following powerpoint is sourced mainly from Vox.com with material from the
NZ Herald, CNN, the Guardian and Wikipedia.
• Israel and Hamas are at war in the Gaza Strip.
• Hamas is firing rockets into Israel, Israel has been launching airstrikes against
Hamas, and, on Thursday 17th July, Israel announced it will launch a ground
invasion. The violence is dominating headlines internationally.
• But there is a lot of backstory that is necessary to understand what's happening,
both in the day-to-day conflict and the bigger picture.
• What is Hamas, really, and what does it want?
• What is Gaza, and does Israel control it?
• In order to give you a better sense of what's actually happening in the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, here are 11 basic but critical facts you need to know to
understand what's going on in Gaza today.

3. The Leaders – Israel & Hamas
Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of Israel
Image Source https://twitter.com/netanyahu
Khaled Mashal (Arabic: ‫مشعل‬ ‫خالد‬ Khālid Mashʿal,
Leader of Hamas
Image Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas

4. Where is Gaza?

5. 1) The Gaza Strip used to be part of Egypt, and is totally
separate from the West Bank

6. 1) The Gaza Strip used to be part of Egypt, and is totally
separate from the West Bank
• As you can see from the map, Gaza is separate from the other major
Palestinian population centre — the green area to the east of Israel is
called the West Bank. So despite both territories being largely
populated by Palestinians, they're basically separate geographic
entities.
• Before Israel occupied Gaza, it was controlled for some years by
Egypt, which borders Gaza on the west. Israel took it from Egypt
during the 1967 Six Day War between the two countries, and until
2005 it occupied the Gaza Strip in the same way that it has occupied
the West Bank through today.
• INQUIRY – Find out about the 1967 Six Day War.

7. 2) Gaza City is among the most densely populated
places in the world
The Gaza Strip is 146 square miles
and has a population of about 1.6
million. That's a lot of people in a
very small area. For perspective,
Philadelphia is about 142 square
miles and has about 1.5 million
citizens. In other words, the entire
Gaza Strip is basically as dense as
major American city

8. 2) Gaza City is among the most densely
populated places in the world
• According to data compiled by the Washington Post's Adam Taylor,
Gaza City, the largest population centre in the Strip, is the 40th most
densely populated urban area in the world, putting it on par with
some Asian mega-cities.
• This matters for the current conflict, because it makes it very hard for
Israel to bomb from the air without hitting civilians.
• Hamas also places rocket emplacements inside civilian population
centres, so Israeli aerial offensives inside Gaza are basically
guaranteed to kill lots of non-combatants no matter how much Israel
attempts to avoid it.

9. 3) Israel used to have troops and settlers inside Gaza
• Until 2005, Israel occupied Gaza in the same way that it occupied the West Bank.
That included Israeli military bases and settlements, communities of Jews living
inside Palestinian territory.
• In 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to withdraw from Gaza.
Sharon, a long time hawk and skeptic of Palestinian independence, had
concluded that the Israeli occupation was no longer in Israel's interest. Sharon
withdrew Israeli outposts and uprooted about 10,000 settlers. It was a hugely
controversial move inside Israel, particularly on the political right — the current
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, quit the government in protest.
• Sharon left control of Gaza to a united Palestinian Authority, governed by the
moderate Fatah party from Ramallah, in the West Bank. But that's not actually
how things worked out — Hamas quickly became the dominant power in Gaza.
That means that Palestinians in Gaza aren't just physically separated form those
in the West Bank, they're governed separately as well.
• INQUIRY Question – What is meant by the term HAWK?

10. 4) Hamas is part of an international Islamist
movement and doesn't recognize Israel
• Since Hamas' 1987 founding, it has waged war on Israel, most notably
through suicide bombings and rocket attacks. It seeks to replace Israel with
a Palestinian state, and has repeatedly refused to recognize Israel (though
it has a proposed a long-term truce if Israel agrees to withdraw from the
West Bank). Some Hamas leaders have suggested that they would be
satisfied with a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, but it's not at
all clear whether they'd be able or willing to hammer out a deal with Israel
in practice — assuming Israel was even willing to sit down with them,
which is doubtful.
• Hamas and Israel's long history of antagonism — Hamas conducted a
significant number of suicide bombings inside Israel during the early 2000s
— is a major contributor to the current crisis. Hamas and Israel refuse to
negotiate openly and directly, and neither trusts the other even a little bit.
As such, even small provocations have the potential to escalate rapidly.
• Inquiry Question – What does the word escalate mean?

11. 5) Hamas was democratically elected by
Palestinians
Hamas sees itself as the
representative of the
Palestinian people — and, in a
sense, they're not totally
wrong. Prodded by the George
W. Bush administration, the
Palestinian Authority held
popular elections across the
West Bank and Gaza for the
Palestinian legislature in 2006.
Hamas won a slight majority.

12. 5) Hamas was democratically elected by
Palestinians
• However, Hamas refused to recognize Israel or respect past
Palestinian agreements with Israel while in government. Hamas
fought a pretty bloody civil war with the more moderate Fatah party
over this and de facto seceded from the PA to govern Gaza
independently from the West Bank-based leadership.
• Today, Hamas and Fatah are closer to reconciling than they've ever
been. They signed a agreement to both support an interim
government in April, and have agreed to hold national elections in
Gaza and the West Bank sometime in the next five months.
• However, Hamas and Fatah disagree deeply about the current
conflict. Hamas has been firing rockets at Israel, while Fatah urges a
halt to hostilities. It's not clear whether the joint government can
survive the current round of fighting.

13. 6) Hamas isn't the only militant group in the Gaza
strip, and they've all shot rockets into Israel
Hamas is, according to its charter, the
Palestinian branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood — an Islamist group that
operates around the Muslim world,
and one that nominally ran the
Egyptian government for about a year
recently. Hamas isn't controlled by the
Egypt-based brotherhood leadership,
but they have close ties.
Unlike many Brotherhood branches,
though, Hamas also has a militant
wing: the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades

14. 6) Hamas isn't the only militant group in the Gaza
strip, and they've all shot rockets into Israel
• There are other militant groups in Gaza, most notably Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
These groups are even more radical than Hamas and are wholly committed to
violence rather than to politics as the main tactic in their struggle with Israel.
• Since the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, Hamas and these other groups have
launched thousands of rockets and mortars out of Gaza into Israel. This rocket fire
rarely causes casualties, but it makes life miserable for Israelis who live within
range. The drumbeat of rocket fire destroys Israeli homes and forces people to
scramble and hide when sirens sound. It's lessened recently, but it's one of
Israel's most significant grievances with the Hamas leadership.
• Because Israel holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire from Gaza, including
from other Palestinian groups, sometimes Hamas gets sucked into violent flare-
ups that it's trying to avoid. So the non-Hamas groups in Gaza help push the
already-militant Hamas toward conflict with Israe

15. 7) Israel blockades Gaza, which creates a
humanitarian crisis
• Since 2007, Israel has maintained a blockade of Gaza. It severely restricts all border crossings in territory it
controls and naval pathways into the Strip. The blockade restricts access to food, water, electricity, gas,
construction materials, and other necessities. It's not that Israel doesn't let any of those things into Gaza; it's
that it bans many products and regulates the flow of others pretty tightly.
• The stated goal of the blockade, which Israel has loosened recently, is to prevent Hamas from getting what it
needs to build rockets and mortars that could hit Israel, and rocket fire has diminished. However, it's clear
that another key purpose of the blockade is to weaken Hamas politically. Limiting access to goods, the
theory goes, should either cause Palestinians to shift their support to a more moderate faction or force
Hamas itself to moderate.
• This causes a lot of suffering among Gaza's civilians. According to Oxfam, the blockade "has devastated
Gaza's economy, left most people unable to leave Gaza, restricted people from essential services such as
healthcare and education, and cut Palestinians off from each other." Oxfam has numbers to back that up:
• More than 40% of people in Gaza - nearly 50% of youth - are now unemployed and 80% of people receive
international aid. Many key industries, such as the construction industry, have been decimated as essential
materials are not allowed into Gaza. Exports are currently at less than 3% of their pre-blockade levels, with
the transfer of agricultural produce and other goods to the West Bank and exports to Israel entirely banned.

16. 8) Israel and Hamas have fought multiple wars over
Gaza.
• Since Israel's 2005 disengagement, Israel and Hamas have fought three separate
wars: in 2006, in 2008-9, and in 2012; Israel invaded Gaza in the first two but only
bombed in the third. The 2006 war was triggered by Hamas kidnapping a young
Israeli soldier, much as the current crisis was triggered by the kidnapping and
murder in the West Bank of three Israeli students. They were killed by men who
Israel believes were Hamas operatives.
• Israel's stated goal in the 2008-2009 and 2012 war, which Israel respectively calls
Operation Cast Lead and Operation Pillar of Defense, was to destroy Hamas'
ability to launch rockets into Israel. The strategy was to destroy Hamas' rocket
stock and supply lines as well as to deter future Hamas rocket attacks.
• Since Hamas rocket attacks seriously declined after 2012, there's a case that
Israel's strategy succeeded. However, it came at a serious cost in Palestinian lives.
As the chart below shows, casualties in the conflict — almost entirely Palestinian
— spiked during the 2008-9 and 2012 hostilities:
•

17. What general conclusions can we make from this graph?

18. 9) Hamas gets a lot of rockets from Iran
Iran is arguably Hamas' most important
international patron. For many years, Iran
supplied Hamas with cash and advanced
rockets. But, in 2012, Hamas and Iran went
through something of a divorce over the war in
Syria. Iran backs Syrian dictator Bashar al-
Assad, an Alawite Shia, against the popular
Sunni rebellion, which the mostly-Sunni
Palestinians largely support. Hamas refused to
take Assad's side, so Iran cut off cash
shipments in late 2012.

19. 9) Hamas gets a lot of rockets from Iran
• However, Hamas-Iranian relations appear to be on the mend. In
March 2014, Israel intercepted a shipment of long-range M-320
rockets bound for Gaza. A UN investigation traced them back to an
Iranian port. In May, Iran resumed cash shipments. Hamas home-
makes its shorter range rockets, but appears to depend on Iranian
support for more advanced stuff.
• Iranian involvement complicates the current war significantly. It's
possible a secondary Israeli objective is to send a message to Iran that
it can't get at Israel through Hamas anymore. On the other hand,
Iranian support makes it harder for Israel to starve and bomb Hamas
into submission.

20. 10) Tunnels into Gaza are really important — and
hugely controversial

21. 10) Tunnels into Gaza are really important —
and hugely controversial
• Because Hamas can't get much through the Israeli blockade, they've developed
an alternative means of resupplying Gaza: tunnels into Egypt. Gazans dig under
the Egyptian border and pop out past border guards on the other sides.
Smugglers supply them with goods that Israel can't or won't let through.
• These tunnels serve both Hamas and Gaza civilians. Hamas and its fellow
militants use them to bring in weapons, components for homemade rockets, and
whatever else they need to fight and, in Hamas' case, govern. Civilians bring in
medicine, food, and whatever else they want that doesn't get through the Israeli
blockade.
• Since the Egyptian military seized rule over Egypt from the Muslim Brotherhood
in 2013, they've weakened the tunnel system. Egyptian authorities shut down
many of the major tunnels. Israel believes that, as a result, Hamas is uniquely
vulnerable to an offensive right now, as it's having trouble resupplying. One of the
major reasons Israel is considering a ground offensive, according to a senior IDF
official, is to shut down the remaining tunnels.

22. 11) Egypt controls the only above-ground crossing
into Gaza that isn't Israeli
• There's only one major supply route to Gaza that isn't a tunnel or Israeli-
controlled: the Rafah crossing into Egypt. Currently, Egypt heavily restricts the
flow of people and goods in and out of the crossing. The Muslim Brotherhood is
the leading Egyptian opposition group, and the Egyptian government has little
desire to help out their Palestinian brethren in Hamas.
• The Rafah crossing has become so important for Hamas that some experts
believe Hamas is pushing in this current war to pressure Egypt to open up
Rafah. The theory is that Hamas is trying to leverage public Egyptian anger at
Israel into concessions from the Egypt government. The primary concession
would be to open up Rafah so as to aid the Palestinian cause.
• That may be why Hamas didn't accept the Egyptian-brokered cease fire
agreement, proposed on July 15: it didn't specifically promise to open up Rafah.
So the conflict is continuing, with all the air strikes and rockets and civilian
casualties that entails.

24. The death toll so far.

25. Questions and Activities
1. What is happening in Gaza?
2. Why is this happening?
3. Make a list of the countries and groups connected to this situation.
4. What might happen next?
5. Why are people in New Zealand concerned about the situation in
Gaza?
6. What should New Zealand do?
7. Write a letter to the Prime Minister of Israel and the leader of
Hamas to persuade them to stop fighting and work out their
differences peacefully.

26. Sources
• http://edition.cnn.com
• http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/israels-ground-
invasion-of-gaza-live-updates#block-53c990ade4b0f82a53afd4df
• http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503076&ga
l_cid=1503076&gallery_id=144295
• http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid
=11296228
• http://rt.com/news/174116-gaza-israel-campaign-protests/
• http://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/5904691/hamas-israel-gaza-11-