Nadene Goldfoot
Gaza had been the city of the Philistines, main enemy of Jews since Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan. The Philistines were a fighting -people by nature, originating from Asia Minor and Greek locations, reaching Canaan in various waves of the Mediterranean. One group arrived early and settled south of Beersheba in Gerar, coming into conflict with Abraham and Isaac. Another group came from Crete after being kicked out by Egypt by Ramses II in 1194 BCE and they founded 5 places; Gaza, Ascalon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. Gaza had been used by the Egyptians of the 15th to 13th centuries BCE to serve as a base for Egyptian expeditions to the north when it was captured by the Philistines and became their most important site by housing their temple of Dagon.
Along came Joshua with the Israelites in about 1271 BCE who allotted it to the tribe of Judah, the largest tribe of the 12 of Jacob. However, though they should have been quite strong and healthy after walking for 40 years, the city remained in Philistine hands and was the place of the imprisonment and death of Samson.
The Assyrians attacked this Northern city of Israel 551 years later in 720 BCE and it was annexed by King Sargon of Assyria who took the best lot of the people as slaves to Assyria. 199 years later in 521 BCE the city was taken by Cambyses of Persia. Alexander the Great recolonized the city 189 years later as a Hellenistic city in 332 BCE. When Alex died, Gaza was disputed over between the Egyptian Ptolemies and the Syrian Seleucids until Antiochus III of Syria ( Greek Hellenistic king and the 6th ruler of the Seleucid Empire. He ruled over the region of Syria and large parts of the rest of western Asia towards the end of the 3rd century BC.) annexed it in 198 BCE. Gaza was independent in 110 for a few years but captured by Alexander Yannai in 96, when along came General Pompey declaring it a free city in 61 BCE. We remember our holiday of Chanukah telling us of Antiochus of the Greek Syrians having taken over the Temple and putting in idols, forcing Jews to bow to them.
During the Middle Ages, it was populated by Jews and Samaritans until its capture by Napoleon in 1799. It became a center of Sabbetaism, a false messiah period in the 17th century. The Jews left the city in 1917, the end of WWI when discussions were going on to create Eretz Yisrael a Jewish state. A few Jews returned but left again during the 1929 Arab rioting.
The Gaza Strip includes the town of Gaza, extending from the eastern border of Egypt north along the Palestinian coast for 22 miles with the average width of 8 miles. It was the result of the Egyptian advance into the Negev in May 1948, and the Israel offensives of October to December 1948 which drove them out of the entire area, with the exception of the Gaza Strip. The area remained under Egyptian rule according to the Armistice Agreement of 1949. The Gaza Strip had also been until 1948, part of the British Mandate of Palestine. Between 1948 and 1967, with a brief interruption in 1956-1957, following the Sinai War, it was administered by an Egyptian Military Government. It was not annexed by Egypt.
The Gaza Strip had become the focus of military and political tension by 1955, and in November 1956, was captured by Israeli forces in the course of the SINAI War. Under UN and especially US pressure, Israel returned the Gaza Strip in March 1957, when Egyptians resumed control with a UN emergency Force stationed along the border with Israel.
In May 1967, the UN secretary-general U Thant accceded to a demand by Nasser to withdraw the UN force, thereby precipitating the events leading to the Six-Day War when the Gaza Strip again passed under Israel control. It has been the scene of frequent unrest. The 1967 census found 352,260 in the Gaza Strip of whom 172,520 were refugees. By July 1972, there were 388,600 in the Gaza Strip (360 sq. km-140 sq miles.
In August 2005, the State of Israel “disengaged” from the Gaza Strip, removing all Israeli military installations, 25 Israeli settlements (4 in the West Bank) with over 8,000 residents. The Israel disengagement was unilateral, and was not the result of negotiations with the Palestinians. Israelis left everything for the Palestinians, even their businesses there, such as greenhouses.
“The purpose of the disengagement plan is to reduce terrorism as much as possible, and grant Israeli citizens the maximum level of security. The process of disengagement will lead to an improvement in the quality of life, and will help strengthen the Israeli economy.” The disengagement plan required the uprooting and resettlement of 25 Israeli communities in the Gaza Strip. The decision was made in the name of peace, hoping for a better future for both.
When the Israeli government made its decision to disengage from Gaza in 2005, Gaza was home to over 1,324,991 people. Roughly 99.4 percent of the population was Palestinian and 0.06 percent was Jewish. Forty-nine percent of the population there was age 14 and under. The birth rate was 40.62 births/1,000 population with a fertility rate of 6.04 children born/woman. Demographically, Gaza was a challenging place for any authority to administer.
Opponents of the plan argued that Israel was retreating from Gaza“under fire” – that the decision to disengage was a capitulation to Palestinian terrorism, and not in the context of mutually agreed concessions. The Gaza Strip contained 21 civilian Israeli communities. They all had to leave.
| In the Gaza Strip (21 communities): | |||
While the Israeli military fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip in the disengagement, Hamas-controlled Gaza (it took over the territory in 2007) represents a serious security challenge to Israel. In response to Hamas terrorist attacks and the launching of thousands of rockets at Israeli population centers, the IDF has conducted military operations (aerially or on the ground) against Hamas in Gaza in 2008/9, 2012 and 2014.
The turning over Gaza to the Palestinians showed up quickly as a big error. They voted in the Hamas terrorists as their governing body. "After Israel's withdrawal, the Palestinians were given control over the Gaza Strip, except for the borders, the airspace and the territorial waters. On September 23, hours after rockets were shot into Israel, and the fight was on. Israel retaliated. A Hamas pickup truck in the Jabaliya refugee camp was struck by a missile, killing at least 19 people (both militants and civilians) and injuring 85 people. On September 26, Israel killed Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander Mohammad Khalil and his bodyguard with a missile strike; on September 29 Israel closed all Hamas charities on the West Bank, and as part of a five-day offensive fired artillery into the Gaza Strip. 
Rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, on November 13, 2019
Sirens throughout the night cried out in Israel as multiple rocket salvos launched from Gaza.
Israel and Egypt control the flow of imports into Gaza due to Hamas’ misuse and misappropriation of goods for military purposes. 
Tunnel found, dug out by Gazans to bring in ammunition, attack Israelis, etc.
Cities near the border of Gaza have been under constant daily attack by rockets from Gaza. It was turned into the base of attack on Israel. Gazans have even built a tunnel to receive ammunition to use on Israel.
The recent rocket attack in May of the barrage of 4,340 from Gaza lasted 11 days. Israelis had to hunker down in their bomb shelters in their lengthy surprise attack. The Gazans harmed themselves as Israel had to respond. There were 261 dead with 129 out of 248 Gazans being civilians, if that is possible, for most are part of a fighting force. 1,042 housing and commercial units in Gaza were damaged. Israel hit 1,500 targets in response. This all started over some argument over housing on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
The cease-fire was on a Thursday, May 21, 2011. At 2 a.m. local time, just as the cease-fire took effect, life returned to the streets of Gaza. People went out of their homes, some shouting “Allahu Akbar" or whistling from balconies. Many fired in the air, celebrating the truce.
President Barack Obama of USA's last days were in the end of January 2017. In Barack Obama's final actions in office before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, he released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority PA. The money came from federal aid the US provides to the West Bank and Gaza, aid that totaled about $355 million in 2015. The sum released by Obama during his last hours in office had been held up by a group in Congress that included Reps. Ed Royce of California and Kay Granger of Texas. Congress had been looking at various behaviors from Palestine — unilateral attempts at statehood, corruption, incitement of violence, and paying salaries to people in jail for terrorism — and that's why the hold has been there," Dr. Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Business Insider. However, the payment itself has been frozen by the State Department under President Trump.
The news on January 20, 2021, said that the Biden administration on Wednesday unfroze $27.4 billion in government funding that former President Trump locked up before leaving office. Last Thursday, Trump used a budgetary legal provision calling on Congress to rescind funds from 73 programs that were fully funded in December's $2.3 trillion omnibus spending bill. Trump signed the bill into law but complained about many of its provisions. It was on January 20, 2021 that Trump left office and Biden took over. We have seen in the past that the Palestinians spend their money on ammunition to use against Israel instead of using it to make a better life for their people. How will they use this big sum of money?
In January 18th and 20th, 2021, 3 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel.
In April, 15, 23, 24, and 25th, a total of 44 were fired of which 6 were intercepted by Israel's iron Dome defense system on the 23rd when 36 were shot at Israel. No property was damaged. The military responded with military strikes. It is very upsetting to go through such an ordeal and affects everyone and everything. It cannot be laughed off. That's why Israel must respond. Now, you may think differently, but Israel has tried the other way of ignoring, and it only shows a weakness and more rockets as a result.
Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired dozens of rockets at Israel after its air strikes killed top commanders and felled another tower block there. The escalation, which began on Monday, has triggered street violence in Israel between Jews and Israeli Arabs. In two incidents, a Jewish man in Acre was attacked by Arab men, and a Jewish mob pulled a Palestinian out of his car and beat him up in Bat Yam. At least 67 people in Gaza and seven people in Israel have been killed. The fighting erupted on Monday after weeks of rising Israeli-Palestinian tension in East Jerusalem which culminated in clashes at a holy site revered by Muslims and Jews.
Between 10-18 May of 2021, during the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, more than 3,440 rockets were fired toward Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Jerusalem and other communities. Ten Israelis were killed. More than 90% of the rockets heading toward populated areas were intercepted by the Iron Dome. About a third fell inside the Gaza Strip. Most of the others fell in open fields.
By 21 May, when a ceasefire came into effect, at least 4,000 rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, of which hundreds fell short and hit Gaza.
On 16 June 2021, incendiary balloons were launched from Gaza into Israel, which the Israeli Air Force responded to with multiple airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, causing fighting to resume. The Israeli military said it targeted compounds belonging to Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza.
The incendiary balloons sparked 20 fires in southern Israel on Tuesday.
Hamas said they were a response to a march by Israeli nationalists in "occupied" East Jerusalem. Palestinians do not accept the fact that it is now part of Israel, unified with west Jerusalem. Unfortunately, they usually call ALL of Israel as occupied land.
There were no casualties on either side and calm had been restored by Wednesday morning.
This is a case of giving up land to the Palestinians who used it to fire rockets into Israel almost every day since they received it. More Palestinians get killed in the process because this brings on Israel's air force. Israel does not use its people but protects their lives with bomb shelters, whereas the Palestinians are definitely using theirs in order to bring on accusation against Israel for defending their population. Anything to put Israel in a bad light. They are creating propaganda to use against Israel.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Facts About Israel-Division of Information, Ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem
https://www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/disengagement
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/gaza-disengagement/
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-11-days-4-340-rockets-and-261-dead-the-israel-gaza-fighting-in-numbers-1.9836041
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/israel-unleashes-strikes-vowing-press-gaza-77796552
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_crisis
https://www.businessinsider.com/obama-queitly-sends-221-million-to-palestine-2017-1
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/535155-biden-reverses-trumps-freeze-on-274-billion-in-funds
https://www.timesofisrael.com/rocket-warning-sirens-sound-near-gaza-border-idf-investigating/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel_in_2021
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