Gaza Strip Crossword Puzzle for Kids

Gaza (also called the Gaza Strip) is a polity along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of two territories that make up the State of Palestine. (The other is the West Bank).

Gaza City is its main city. The Palestinian National Authority governed Gaza until 2006, and before 2007, Harakat At-Tahriri Al-Filistiniya administered the territory. The Islamic group Hamas won by a big majority in elections held in 2006. From 2006 to present, Hamas governs Gaza.

Geography

It has an 11-km (7-mi) border with Egypt, near the city of Rafah.

According to one article:The whole of Gaza (aka the Gaza Strip) is about twice the size of Washington, D.C. and three times the population. [...] The Gaza Strip is geographically about the size of Philadelphia, Detroit or the country of Grenada. The Gaza Strip has the same land area as Las Vegas but more than three times the population. There are approximately 2.23 million residents of the small territory.

Three mountain ridges run alongside Gaza's coastline. These ridges are very important to Gaza's topography.

Gaza's major river is Wadi Gaza. The Wadi Gaza Nature Reserve was established to protect the country's only coastal wetland.

Several towns around Deir el-Balah are located along the coast between Rafah and Gaza City

History

The costal enclave of Gaza has been inhabited for thousands of years. Throughout history, it was fought over by many peoples, including Egyptian Pharaohs, Babylonians, Philistines, and Alexander the Great.

However, the Ottoman Empire controlled the area from the 16th century through the end of World War I. At that point, the Ottoman Empire was broken up. After this, the British took control of the area known as Palestine, including the Gaza Strip. At that time, a number of ethnic groups lived there, including Arabs, Jews, and others.

The British had offered to let Egypt govern Gaza, but Egypt refused, so Britain itself occupied the territory from 1917–1918. (Previously, in 1906, the Ottomans and the British Empire had set Gaza's international border with Egypt.)

The British also occupied Gaza from 1920 until 1948. During this time, tensions deepened between Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine. Jewish leaders who lived in Rafah in the Gaza Strip were forced into detention camps. Then, in 1948, the League of Nations ordered a "Mandatory Palestine".

During the 1948 conflict (particularly the 1948 War), many Arabs and Jews fled their homes throughout the region. The greatest concentration of Palestinians ended up in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians settled in Gaza after fleeing their homes or being forced to leave. By the end of the war, 25% of Mandatory Palestine's Arab population was in Gaza, though the area constituted only 1% of the land. The same year, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established to administer various refugee programmes.

Demographics

In 2010, approximately 1.6 million people lived in Gaza. Almost a million of them were UN-registered refugees. The majority have parents who were refugees following the first major war between Israel and the Arab nations around it, in 1948. Gaza's population has increased since then.

Many people living in Gaza are children. Almost half (43.5%) of the population is 14 or younger. In 2014, the median age was 18.

Sunni Muslims make up 99.8% of Gaza's population. Christians make up the other 0.2%; there are between 2,000 and 3,000 of them in Gaza. For many centuries, Jews also lived in Gaza, including during the Hasmonean Era (167-63 BCE) and the Geonic Period (600-1050 CE), and also during Ottoman rule and the 20th century.

Blockade of the Gaza Strip

In June 1967, during the six day war, Israeli forces took control over Gaza strip. Since then, Gaza has been under military rule. Israeli settlers in Gaza were protected by Israeli civilian law. In 1987, after the first Intifada, Israel made its control over Gaza stricter. By 1994, Israel had built fences, walls and military zones around Gaza. Strict rules who could enter and leave were enforced

In 1993, the first agreement of the Oslo Accords were signed between Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO). In the agreement, the PLO and Israel would recognize each other. According to the agreement, Palestinians would have the right to make their own decisions. However, most Palestinians wanted to end the occupation and create an independent state. Disagreements grew. Hamas and Islamic Jihad wanted to cancel the Oslo accord. The Palestinian Authority(PA) had a confrontation with Hamas in 1994, causing more of a divide between the Palestinians. Even fearing a civil war between Fatah and Islamic groups.

In 1994, as part of the Oslo Accords, Israel gave the Palestinian Authority some control over parts of the Gaza strip. However Israel still controlled other areas.

In January 1996, Hamas and Islamic Jihad called on their supporters not to vote in the 1996 Palestinian elections, because taking part would seem like they accepted the Oslo Accords and that Israel had the right to the existence to exist.

During the Second Intifada in 2000, Israel began to place more restrictions on the Gaza strip, limiting the movement of people and goods in and out Gaza. In October 2000, Israel began to frequently bomb Gaza.

Sports

In 2010, Gaza inaugurated its first Olympic-size swimming pool at the As-Sadaka club. The opening ceremony was held by the Islamic Society. The swimming team of as-Sadaka holds several gold and silver medals from Palestinian swimming competitions.

Text adapted from the Simple English Wikipedia article “Gaza Strip” (revision 10886818, 2026-06-14), authors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.