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Several of my friends here asked me if I鈥檓 in a safe place, but I struggle to explain the geography of Gaza and people from overseas struggle to understand it. So I鈥檓 writing a thread. 馃Ф猬囷笍猬囷笍猬囷笍
#Gaza #FreeGaza #Palestine #FreePalestine #StopGenocide #GazaMutualAid
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The Gaza Strip is tiny: it鈥檚 40 km long, 9 km wide, 365 km2 in area, which is similar to Inner London, or the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens combined.
It鈥檚 tiny and mostly flat, there aren鈥檛 huge differences in climate nor big hills nor mountains. There鈥檚 a few rivers and nature reserves.
There鈥檚 a very long beach all along, only interrupted by the port of Gaza. Al-Rashid Coastal Road mostly follows the coast.
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When bombings, air strikes or any sort of attacks happen at one end of the Gaza Strip, depending on the intensity, you may hear it, see it or feel it from anywhere. It鈥檚 always very intense and terrifying.
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The Gaza Strip is divided into 5 governorates: North Gaza to the north, then Gaza City, then Deir al-Balah, then Khan Yunis, and the southernmost governorate is Rafah.
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In each governorate, there鈥檚 typically a city that鈥檚 surrounded with tinier villages, as well as some farmland, and some refugee camps.
The biggest city is by far Gaza City, where about 1 million people normally live, half of the Gaza Strip population.
The Gaza Strip was home to 2 million people at the beginning of the war. We don鈥檛 know how many people still live and how many were killed or died, with estimates ranging between 65,000 dead and 500,000 dead.
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Before the war, I used to grow up and live in Gaza City, specifically in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City. Most of my family lived in Gaza City.
But my grandparents were originally from a village called Hamama, 25 km north of Gaza City, now completely destroyed and erased from maps, on land claimed by Israel since 1948, outside of the Gaza Strip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamama
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When people talk about Gaza, they can talk about all of the Gaza Strip, or Gaza City only (or, rarely, about the Gaza governorate). Most often, people aren鈥檛 precise, you need to understand based on context.
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