Gaza strip was part of historic Palestine prior to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. 

More than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from historic Palestine in what is known as Al-Nakba, or The Catastrophe.

More than 60 percent of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees, following the expulsion of families in other parts of Palestine in 1948.

Bordered by Israel and Egypt on the Mediterranean coast, the Gaza Strip is an area of about 365 square km, and home to 2.1 million Palestinians, making it one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

Gaza was captured by Egypt during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and was under Egyptian control until the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when the territory was seized and occupied along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In 2005, Israel purportedly pulled out of Gaza and relocated around 8,000 Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers living in 21 settlements around Gaza to the occupied West Bank.

But in 2007, following the Hamas movement’s election victory in Gaza, Israel responded by imposing an air, land and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip.

According to international law, the blockade amounts to an occupation of the strip.