Two years ago, Gaza’s largest city was sprawling with life. Classrooms brimmed with schoolchildren, markets were full of shoppers and beachside cafes offered respite for those escaping the stresses of a besieged enclave.
Gaza City boasts a rich history, inhabited for thousands of years and shaped by successive takeovers from ancient civilizations. It served as a key landing point for Palestinians displaced during Israel’s founding in 1948 and has hundreds of millennia-old sites documenting its past.
It was therefore no surprise that Islamist militant group Hamas chose Gaza City as its de facto capital when it seized control of the strip in 2007.
Years of conflict, a crippling blockade and Hamas’ autocratic rule made life for Palestinians hard. But the institutions set up by the militants, with help from regional governments like Qatar and a robust United Nations aid system, gave some structure to the strip’s exhausted population.
An established underground smuggling system gave Gaza City a taste of the outside world amid the land, air and sea siege imposed by neighbors Israel and Egypt – who both designate Hamas a terror organization. While life was far from easy in Gaza City, with half the population unemployed and Hamas’ police strictly patrolling the streets, you could still get a matcha latte on the way to a yoga studio, or relax in a park.
Today, what was once the cultural and financial hub of the enclave, lies in lawless ruins, devastated by months of a brutal Israeli assault triggered by Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel almost two years ago. And as Israel’s plans to launch a new offensive on the densely populated area to eliminate Hamas militants hiding underground, Palestinians of the Gaza historic city reckon, once again, with mounting fears of survival.