Gaza has been at the forefront of international news for more than two years. Coverage has focused on the deadly attacks by Hamas and other armed groups of 7 October 2023 and the subsequent relentless Israeli bombardment. But what history lies behind these events? With admirable clarity and concision, Anne Irfan has provided an excellent primer for those who wish to find out.

Gaza is among the oldest cities in the world, featuring in Genesis as a border city of Canaan. But there was no Gaza Strip until 1948. That year, a sliver of land along the Eastern Mediterranean was one of two parts of Palestine which fell outside Israeli control following the war which brought Israel into existence. Comprising 555 square kilometres at the Armistice Agreement in 1949, it was reduced to 365 square kilometres under a largely-forgotten addendum in 1950.

The Gaza Strip, as the Egyptian authorities later named it, comprised about 1.5 per cent of Mandatory Palestine, but the 80,000 residents living there were joined by more than 200,000 refugees fleeing from other parts. Most were housed in eight refugee camps which exist to this day. The population had grown to about 2.1 million at the outset of hostilities in 2023, making it one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

Irfan tells the story through the lens of six key episodes: dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948 (the Nakba), Egyptian rule from 1948, Israeli occupation from the Six Day War of 1967, the first intifada of 1987, administration by the Palestinian Authority (PA) from 1994 and the rise of Hamas. Recent events are summarized in an epilogue.

It is, by way of understatement, an unhappy story from which no major player emerges with credit. Egypt did little for Gaza during its administration. The Israeli occupation was harsh, subjecting Palestinians to a cruel double standard in which grossly disproportionate shares of land and resources were allocated to a few thousand Israeli settlers. Although they were evacuated in 2005, Israel retained full control over Gaza’s borders, airspace, territorial waters and water and electricity supplies.

The international community has done little to protect Palestinians in Gaza or secure their rights under international law. Israel’s western allies have paid lip service to the notion of a two-state solution but stood by while facts on the ground were created, in the shape of massive settlement of the West Bank, which have made its establishment well-nigh impossible.

Nor have the Palestinians been well-served by their own leaders. Irfan explains succinctly and persuasively why the 1993 Oslo Agreement was a poor deal for the Palestinians. In any event, Yasser Arafat made little of the opportunity it presented. The PA running Gaza under his leadership acquired a reputation for corruption, incompetence and authoritarian repression of dissent.

Against this background, Hamas came to power in 2006. Irfan argues that was driven more by Palestinian despondency over their situation and Hamas’ platform of “Change and Reform” than by hardline Islamist positions. From today’s standpoint, readers may be surprised that Israel’s relationship with the Islamist movement was not always one of outright hostility. It provided support to the Muslim Brotherhood (from which Hamas developed), seeing it as a counterweight to Arafat’s secular PLO. Even in the 21st century, many on the Israeli right, including Benjamin Netanyahu, thought that Hamas’ governance of Gaza suited Israeli interests because it divided the Palestinians.

Be all that as it may, Hamas has served the population of Gaza very badly. It failed to deliver on promises of reform and was guilty of many of the same failings as the PA. The attack on 7 October 2003 was not only morally heinous but tactically disastrous, provoking the Israeli response which has killed about 68,000 Palestinians, injured countless more and reduced the Strip to ruins.

How the conflict in Gaza might be resolved falls outside the scope of this book. However, Irfan is surely correct that, the history of Gaza being inextricably linked with the wider Palestinian question, any attempt to treat the Gaza crisis separately is doomed to fail. Notwithstanding President Trump’s recent proclamation of “eternal peace” in the Middle East, a just and lasting solution to the question of Palestine has seldom looked more distant than it does today.
 
A Short History of the Gaza Strip by Anne Irfan. Published by Simon & Schuster, 304pp, £18.99.