The Gaza Strip faces an uncertain future four months after the conclusion of a war in which 2200 people were killed there.
The Strip remains deeply isolated, while the Islamist terrorist group Hamas's continued control over the territory has dissuaded donors from aiding in the area's post-conflict reconstruction. Last week, two rockets were fired at Israel from the Strip; the Israelis responded by destroying a Hamas training camp. But today, material for the construction of a Coca Cola plant was allowed to enter the territory, signaling that economic opportunities might slowly rebound as wartime tensions recede.
Business Insider visited the coastal Strip in November. While it's hard to view anything there outside the context of the region's ceaseless and often violent state of flux, Gaza offers signs of both a rich history and its own, resilient version of normal life.
The Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt after the 1948 Middle East War, until Israel seized the territory during the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel unilaterally pulled all of its soldiers and civilian settlers from the Strip in 2005.
Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007. It's a US-listed and Iranian-supported terrorist group whose charter calls for Israel's destruction, so the takeover soon triggered a policy of Israeli and Egyptian border, maritime, and airspace restrictions that continues until now. Despite these hurdles, Hamas has built up enough of a weapons and cash stockpile to launch thousands of rocket attacks on Israel and fight three wars with their powerful neighbor — most recently this past summer.
Gaza City sits along an idyllic stretch of Mediterranean coast. Despite the violence of that had gripped the area just a few months ago, a tense calm prevails through much of the Strip. This was the calming view of the Gaza City port from my room at the Roots Hotel.
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