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The Gaza Strip
A narrow Mediterranean coastal strip divided by a ceasefire line since October 2025
The Gaza Strip is a sliver of Mediterranean coastline about 41 kilometers long, home to roughly 2.1 million Palestinians and, since October 2023, the scene of the deadliest war in the history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The war began when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people by Israeli count and taking 251 hostages. Israel's air and ground campaign that followed left most of the territory in ruins. A US-brokered ceasefire took effect on 10 October 2025, the living hostages were freed, and a demarcation known as the Yellow Line split the strip between Israeli forces and Hamas. A year later the fighting is reduced but not over, and reconstruction has not begun.
The strip covers about 365 square kilometers of sandy coastal plain, bordered by Israel to the north and east and by Egypt to the south, with Gaza City, Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah strung along a single north–south axis. Under the ceasefire, Israeli forces pulled back to the Yellow Line, which left them about 53 percent of the territory. The line has since moved west. The Israeli group Gisha and Forensic Architecture estimated about 58 percent under Israeli control, the UN and Human Rights Watch cite about 64 percent, and OCHA reports access restrictions across 65 percent. Israeli officials have spoken of 60 to 70 percent. Hamas keeps de facto control of the crowded western zone, where nearly the whole population now lives, much of it in tents.
Egypt administered Gaza after the 1948 war, and Israel captured it in 1967 and built settlements there. Israel withdrew its settlers and troops in 2005 while keeping control of the borders, airspace and sea. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections and took sole control in 2007, after which Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade. UN Security Council Resolution 2803 of November 2025 endorsed a US-chaired Board of Peace and an International Stabilization Force, but as of October 2026 the force has not deployed inside Gaza at scale, Hamas has not disarmed, and the plan's second phase is unnegotiated. The Gaza Health Ministry, whose figures UN agencies cite and Israel disputes, counts more than 74,000 dead since 2023. The EU, UN and World Bank put recovery needs at about $71 billion.