That the Gaza Strip has become the biggest problem for the coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians has an origin as complex as its solution. Historical territory of dispute between a Jewish minority and an Arab majority, Hebrew settlements have been rejected by Palestinians over the centuries, to the point that both the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate of Palestine after the First World War prevented the establishment of Jews in the territory.
The proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948 made coexistence between both communities even more difficult, which in the narrow coastal corridor bordering the Sinai and the Negev desert was impossible after the invasion of Egypt. It was then that Gaza and the adjacent municipalities became a nightmare for Israel.
Once the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 concluded with a Jewish victory, the Gaza Strip remained a Palestinian bastion occupied by Egypt. It was then that a small territory articulated around eight small agricultural municipalities became a refuge for up to 200,000 Palestinians displaced by the war, who added to the 80,000 inhabitants that the strip had then.
Bridgehead for Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, the first informal Palestinian attacks on Israel were launched from Gaza, until the Egyptian president tightened the rope in 1956 by occupying the Gulf of Aqaba and taking control of the Suez Canal. Not only Israel, but France and the United Kingdom reacted to return the status quo to the canal, expelling Egypt from the region, including the Gaza Strip.
It was at that moment, on January 17, 1957, when the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel, Golda Mier, addressed the United Nations General Assembly to refer to the situation and raise the threat that a Gaza strip with a government hostile to Israel meant for his country. The future Israeli prime minister also denounced the conditions in which her population found itself. It is the speech that we offer extracted.
His Executive did not hesitate to abandon the occupation and gave up trying to pacify what was already an entrenched conflict and did not react when, just a few months later, Egyptian troops crossed the border again to maintain the occupation for another decade in what was formally It was the union of the strip to the short-lived United Arab Republic.
This framework was blown up again in the Six-Day War, which again with the Israeli victory meant the expulsion of Egypt from Gaza and a new era of Israeli administration. The Oslo agreements of 1993 led to the creation of the Palestinian National Authority, which assumed sovereignty of the strip. Although it was not until 2005 when the Israeli Parliament approved the withdrawal from the area, forcing the eviction of the 9,000 Hebrew settlers who remained there.
“When the State of Israel was established in 1948, the Egyptian Army crossed the Sinai Desert into the Negev, defying the Security Council’s ceasefire resolution, in an attempt to destroy Israel’s newborn independence by force. weapons. The attack was carried out by Israeli settlements in the Negev.
”The Egyptians were forced to cross the international border into the Sinai. However, they managed to hold on to a narrow rectangular strip 6 miles wide that extended north from the Egyptian border for 26 miles along the Mediterranean coast to a point within 35 miles of Tel Aviv.
”The Gaza Strip was an integral part of the mandated territory of Palestine and is a geographical and economic part of the Negev. During the eight years of its occupation by Egypt, this strip served as a base to sow terror and wreak havoc against Israel.
”Most of the area is rural, with urban centers in Gaza, with a population of 45,000; Khan Yunis with a population of 14,000 and Rafah with a population of 5,000. The resident population of the entire strip is estimated at 80,000 people. Only about a third of the population manages to support themselves with the cultivation of citrus fruits, the cultivation of dates and some small industry.
”About 200,000 refugees live within the Gaza Strip and are fed, clothed and generally provided for by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and other international aid agencies. Throughout the Egyptian occupation of Gaza, Egypt did not annex the Gaza Strip, but instead treated it as occupied territory provisionally administered by the Egyptian military authorities.
”In a ruling handed down by the Court of Administrative Jurisdiction in Cairo in September 1955, it was stated that the Gaza Strip was outside Egyptian territory and that the Egyptian authorities were exercising a kind of control over part of the territory of Palestine.
”Throughout its occupation of the strip, which ended in November 1956, Egypt acted in Gaza as a foreign conqueror. There was no democratic local representation in the Government councils. No measures were taken to improve the impoverished condition of the area. Restrictions were imposed on the passage of people and goods from the Gaza Strip to Egypt. As a result of these conditions, many Gazans fled to Jordan and other Arab countries.
”The only purpose that the Gaza Strip served during the Egyptian occupation was to provide a convenient base for aggression against Israel. The Gaza area, which extends deep into the heart of Israeli territory, is excellently situated as a springboard for this purpose. Over the years, attacks were launched week after week and month after month against the land and people of Israel, and against vital Israeli property and facilities.
”Egypt established a tight-knit chain of armed positions along the entire demarcation line, subjecting Israeli villages to intermittent fire, making life unbearable in large areas of the northern Negev and the southern coastal plain. Israeli casualties in terms of deaths and injuries as a result of the Egyptian attacks, almost all of them coming from the strip, amounted to no less than 573.
”In the summer of 1955, the Nasser regime launched a new form of aggression against Israel from the Gaza Strip. Among the destitute elements of the local population and the refugee camps, the Egyptian High Command organized fedayeen units as military formations of the Egyptian army. Over the past eighteen months, these units carried out an intensified attack campaign against Israel.
”They ambushed road traffic, killed men, women and children, blew up wells and water facilities, mined roads at night and demolished houses where farmers and their families were sleeping peacefully. These outrages culminated in large outbreaks during August and September 1955, April 1956 and October 1956.
”In the ominous buildup of Egyptian forces, with offensive weapons obtained during the first half of 1956, the Gaza Strip played an essential role as a center for fedayeen groups and as an advanced base for a division of the Egyptian Army that was stationed there, an hour by car from Tel Aviv.
”Since the expulsion of Egyptian forces from Gaza, the fedayeen have stopped intervening. When tensions and hostilities subsided in early November, the refugee camps calmed down. Israeli farmers and their families in the Negev had finally achieved physical safety. Since November 3, no house, school or daycare center in their villages has been bombed from across the border.
”The report presented by the representative of the Secretary-General, Colonel Nelson, who visited the Gaza Strip at the end of November, is before the General Assembly as document A/3491. According to this report, ‘Israeli authorities have methodically established a program to stabilize life in Gaza. They have established law and order. The execution of civic responsibilities is being worked on progressively with local officials.
”The Israeli Administration allows the United Nations Relief and Works Agency complete freedom throughout the area. A plan is being developed to make basic foodstuffs available at subsidized prices from Israeli Government stocks to the local non-refugee population. Measures were being introduced to facilitate the marketing of agricultural products, citrus fruits and dates for export from the Gaza area.
”Colonel Nelson reports on the opening of banks and lines of credit. He certifies that there was relatively little physical damage in the area due to the events of November 2 and 3. On November 25, the Israel Civil Police, which reports to the Israel Police Headquarters, was established in the area and is being coordinated with the local police. Both Israeli civil police and local police could be seen patrolling throughout the area. On the other hand, there were few obvious troops in the area compared to the concentration of Egyptian troop units before November 2.
”Colonel Nelson goes on to report that water facilities are functioning throughout the area; that the power plants in the area have returned to normal; that telephone communication is progressively being reestablished; that seized cars and trucks are being progressively returned to their owners; that the hospitals are fully operational; that representatives from the Israeli Ministry of Health have been in the area to coordinate and assist.
”Religious institutions in the area continue their activities without interruption. In a letter addressed on November 18 to the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs, Monsignor Antonio Vergani, vicar general in Israel of the Latin Patriarchate, stated: ‘I have discovered that everything has gone well and that as soon as the occupation of the city forces of Israel had begun, an officer immediately came to the Latin Church, where some 1,500 people sought refuge, and having ascertained that no damage had occurred, posted another officer and guard.’
”The chief vicar of the Armenian Patriarchate and representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross have recorded similar tributes to the growing stability and peace in the Gaza area.
”The future status of the Gaza Strip is yet to be determined. It must be remembered that Gaza is separated from Egypt by dozens of kilometers of desert. The Egyptian military regime during the last eight years was provisional in nature and of indefinite legal status and resulted in the decline of the area and the impoverishment of its population. Egypt has made no contribution to the solution of any part of the refugee problem, even though this problem was created by the invasion of Israel by Egypt and other Arab states in 1948.
”For my Government it is inconceivable that the nightmare of the previous eight years should be restored in Gaza with international sanction. Will Egypt once again be allowed to organize assassinations and sabotage on this strip? Will Egypt be allowed to condemn the local population to permanent impoverishment and block any solution to the refugee problem?
”My Government believes that a solution can be found to the problems of Gaza, and especially to the problem of Arab refugees. On the other hand, it must be admitted that any international force would be unable to prevent the return of elements that would incite and intimidate the local population and refugees, and the intensification of fedayeen activities. Nor is it possible to maintain an area like the Gaza Strip almost completely devoid of economic resources in a state of economic isolation from any adjacent territory.
”It will be seen that the issues that arise are complex and do not offer an easy solution. There are difficult political and security problems involving 80,000 residents and some 200,000 refugees. It is clear that it takes some time to find a permanent solution to all these problems. They cannot be solved overnight.
”The Government of Israel is ready to engage in immediate talks in search of a solution. But we should not ignore the report of the Secretary-General’s representative who writes that the removal of any effective authority from the area would lead to an eruption by refugees or local inhabitants in the form of looting or destruction of property.
”It is not difficult to imagine the suffering and disruption that this devastated region would suffer if all those elements of social, economic and municipal stability that have now been established were uprooted. Opportunities must be encouraged to achieve a radical improvement in the economic and social condition of the inhabitants and to find a solution to the refugee problem.
”We believe that all this can be ensured by continuing the current administrative processes, working in cooperation with representatives of the local population and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and in appropriate contact and relationship with the United Nations.
”While we are not yet ready with the final proposals, we hope to soon present detailed plans to the international community through which the Gaza Strip would achieve peace and stability, which will guarantee the economic future of the population and by which the United Nations The United Nations, with the full cooperation of Israel, will be able to move effectively towards a solution to the refugee problem. The withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the Gaza Strip may well be one of the elements of the agreements we envision.
”We are ready at an early date to pursue our ideas in this regard with the Secretary-General in accordance with paragraph 9 of his note to the General Assembly. In this case, as in that of the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, the desire to proceed quickly to fulfill the General Assembly’s objectives on troop withdrawal must be tempered by a prudent concern to avoid disruption and dislocation, and more everything to prevent any risk of a resumption of the deadly conditions of belligerence that made Gaza a hotbed of international conflict for the previous eight years.
”Mr. President, the General Assembly will surely have no difficulty in concluding that the problem of the Gulf of Aqaba with its broad international perspectives and the question of the Gaza Strip, with its almost incomparable complexity, require further clarification in a spirit of cooperation.
”I have no doubt that if the General Assembly leaves room for such consideration, the progress already recorded in the Secretary General’s note may be crowned by agreements that will eliminate the prospect of a resumption of belligerence on land and sea. In seeking such agreements, my delegation will use all the resources of its heart and mind in the days ahead.”
