The dispute in between Israel and Palestine has continued to escalate in recent days, with Israeli airstrikes on Gaza claiming many lives, including those of 52 children.
A high-rise building housing international media outlets in Gaza was also recently destroyed in an air strike.
The latest outbreak of violence has been the heaviest in the Israel-Gaza conflict since 2014, leading people around the world to fear it may result in a full-out war.
The conflict follows a sustained period of tension following a now-delayed Israeli court ruling on whether dozens of Palestinians could be evicted from the Old City’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in order to make room for Jewish settlers coming into the area.
Much of the violence and airstrikes have taken place across the Gaza strip, an impoverished but densely populated strip that has often been the focal point of the conflict.
But what is the Gaza strip, and where would you find it on a map?
What is the Gaza strip?
The Gaza strip is a self-governed Palestinian territory nestled between Israel and Egypt.
An extensive Israeli buffer zone within the strip renders much land off-limits to Gaza’s Palestinians.
It was once a part of the British-ruled Palestine Mandate, before the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation when it came under Egypt’s control.
During the Six-Day war of 1967, Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
Many Palestinians who fled or were driven from Israel have ended up in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, since the conflict began in the 1940s.
The refugees and their descendants now number 1.85 million, accounting for more than half of Gaza’s population.
Gaza is more densely populated than Tel Aviv and other major world cities like London and Shanghai, and much more so than the areas of Israel that surround it.
That means that even targeted airstrikes in Gaza have a high likelihood of hitting civilians.
Israel completed its withdrawal of the Gaza strip in 2005, although it is still considered by the UN to be occupied.
Where is the Gaza strip on a map?
The Gaza strip is on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean sea.
It borders Egypt on the southwest for 6.8 miles and Israel on the east and north along a 32 mile border.Â
It is 25Â miles long, and from 3.7 to 7.5Â miles wide, with a total area of 141 square miles.
Living conditions in the Gaza strip are typically poor for a number of reasons, including the region’s dense and rapidly increasing population, inadequate water, sewage, and electrical services, high rates of unemployment, and sanctions imposed by Israel on the region.
MORE : Girl, 6, is reunited with dad after being pulled from rubble of home in Gaza
MORE : Tory MP criticised for ‘racist’ tweet calling Israel protesters ‘primitive’
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