Gaza: Portrait of a tragedy

The Gaza Strip has made headlines consistently for over two years and is now the focus of a dubious “Board of Peace” brokered by United States President Donald Trump.

- AKANKSHYA ABISMRUTA

With the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, a new generation of people inhabiting the internet became aware of the Palestinian cause for a sovereign state only to be quickly caught up in the activism to be on “the right side of history” as Israeli forces doubled down on making the strip an open-air prison. But as Anne Irfan points out in

her book A Short History of the Gaza Strip, this cycle of repression and retaliation has been happening for decades on a different scale.

Gaza, the city, is as old as the Old Testament in which it finds a mention. Gaza, the modern-day strip, was born in 1948, its fate entwined with the establishment and expansion of Israel. Ms Irfan begins by describing briefly the historical importance of Gaza as the gateway to Palestine for centuries. During the reign of Ottomans, it was a hub for traders. The British held the Palestine Mandate after defeating the Ottomans during World War I. The Jewish state of Israel was formed on Palestinian land in 1948 with tacit acceptance from Britain and the then rising superpower, the US, forcing the inhabitants to seek refuge in the West Bank, and the newly formed Gaza Strip.