What you want to know about the Gaza Strip

Smoke and fire rise after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on May 12th (Haitham Emad / EPA-EFE / REX / Shutterstock)

As a new round of violence between Israelis and Palestinians Spirals towards an all-out warThe death toll increased unbalanced.

On the Palestinian side, health officials said that more than 100 people in the Gaza Strip, including more than 30 children, were killed in Israeli military operations, including air strikes and shelling. Israel has counted fewer than ten deaths so far, among the rocket attacks from Gaza.

Israel Advanced anti-missile defense system And the Much more firepower It plays major roles in explaining the flaw – as does the extraordinary geography of the Gaza Strip.

Gaza City More densely populated From Tel Aviv and other major world cities such as London and Shanghai, and more than the surrounding areas of Israel. This means that even targeted airstrikes in Gaza have a high probability of hitting civilians.

Sites that have come under air and missile attacks in Israel and Gaza since May 10

Tel Aviv

The Palestinian Hamas movement fired several rockets. Sirens were heard across the city.

Al-Shati Camp

Buildings in a refugee camp in Gaza City were destroyed.

Gaza City Center

The Israeli airstrikes destroyed an apartment building and two towers housing media offices.

Sites that have come under air and missile attacks in Israel and Gaza since May 10

Tel Aviv

The Palestinian Hamas movement fired several rockets. Sirens were heard across the city.

Al-Shati Camp

Buildings in a refugee camp in Gaza City were destroyed.

Gaza City Center

The Israeli airstrikes destroyed an apartment building and two towers housing media offices.

Hit the sites by air and

Rocket attacks in Israel

And Gaza since May 10

Tel Aviv

The Palestinian Hamas movement fired several rockets. Sirens were heard across the city.

Petah Tikva

A missile fired from the Gaza Strip landed in a civilian neighborhood.

Al-Shati Camp

Buildings in a refugee camp in Gaza City were destroyed in the aftermath of an airstrike.

Sderot

A Hamas rocket landed on an apartment building, killing a child.

Gaza City Center

The Israeli airstrikes destroyed an apartment building and two towers housing media offices.

Sites exposed to air and missile attacks in Israel and Gaza

Since May 10

Tel Aviv

The Palestinian Hamas movement fired several rockets. Sirens were heard across the city.

Petah Tikva

A missile fired from the Gaza Strip landed in a civilian neighborhood.

Al-Shati Camp

Buildings in a refugee camp in Gaza City were destroyed in the aftermath of an airstrike.

Sderot

A Hamas rocket landed on an apartment building, killing a child.

Gaza City Center

The Israeli airstrikes destroyed an apartment building and two towers housing media offices.

Children are often harmed in attacks because they are too costly An unusually high percentage of the population: UNICEF estimates that there are Almost a million children Who live in the Gaza Strip, just under half 2.1 million people in Gaza They are children.

The burden of such conflicts “falls on the shoulders of civilians, most of them women and children,” said Dmytro Choprina, deputy director of Airwars, which monitors civilian casualties. “Most of the civilian casualties we see are when civilians hide in the basement, because there is nowhere else to flee.”

The Israeli communities surrounding the Gaza Strip are much less dense. Agricultural land is dotted with the landscape, contrasting with the crowded skyline of high-rise apartment buildings along most of the Gaza Strip.

Approximately 1.4 million residents of the Gaza Strip are Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees – more than half of the population. Refugee camps in the region arose as Palestinians fled the violence of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, and continued to grow as more Palestinians were displaced as a result of the second conflict in 1967.

a High birth rate And arrival New refugees from war-torn countries like Syria In recent years it has meant continuing to swell the population – and the United Nations expects it Double in the next thirty years.

Nearly twice the size of the District of Columbia, the impoverished Palestinian territories are surrounded by Israel on nearly all sides. It also shares a small land border with Egypt.

Living conditions in Gaza are bleak: 95% of the population does not have access to clean water, according to UNRWA, and the lack of electricity periodically brings life to a standstill. World Bank statistics show that the region has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, and the United Nations estimates that nearly 80 percent of the population depends on international aid to survive and access basic services.

In an area as dense as Gaza, Choprina said, airstrikes pose a risk of secondary effects, hitting already weak infrastructure and leaving civilians without electricity or water.

Two young girls in an alley west of Gaza City. (Louay Ayoub for the Washington Post)

Israel restricts travel outside the Gaza Strip and is also imposing an air, land and sea blockade that it says is necessary to prevent Hamas from obtaining supplies that could be used for terror. But the blockade also severely limits Palestinians’ access to basic supplies, basic foodstuffs, and the United Nations Estimates It has cost the territory’s economy up to $ 16.7 billion over 11 years.

Armistice of 1949

Green line

Armistice of 1949

Green line

Palestinians attend the funeral of 15 people killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on May 13th. (Haitham Emad / EPA-EFE / REX / Shutterstock)

Edit photos with Chloe Coleman. Transcription edited by Vanessa Larson.

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