Gaza Strip Timeline .
* In Genesis, God promised the "land of Canaan" to the Jews - Abraham and Sarah's seed:
Genesis 17:4-8: 4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram [Abram means exalted father] ; your name will be Abraham, [Abraham means father of many] for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."
Genesis 17:19-21: 19 Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. [Isaac means he laughs ] I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year."
Genesis 18:10,11: 10 Then the LORD [Hebrew Then he ] said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son." Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing.
* While wandering in the desert of Beersheba [today it's a city in southern Israel], the Angel of the LORD said to Hagar about her son Ishmael in Genesis 16:11-12:The angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, [Ishmael means God hears] for the LORD has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility [public or private enemy; unfriendliness; animosity. attacks of an enemy. animosity; enmity; opposition; violence; aggression; contention; warfare. violent action that is hostile and usually unprovoked. a state of deep-seated ill-will. the state of being hostile; antagonism or enmity. acts of war] toward [Or live to the east / of] all his brothers."
Canaan (Israel) belongs to the Jews/Hebrews:
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river [d] of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates- 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites." [Genesis 15:18-21]
22 If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. 23 My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. [Exodus 23:22,23 ]
1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Command the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter Canaan, the land that will be allotted to you as an inheritance will have these boundaries... [Numbers 34:1,2]
* The ancient root of bitterness ( the original conflict) between Isaac and Ishmael's descendents was who is the true son of God's promise - the Holy Bible says Isaac [Genesis 17:19-21], and the islam Quran says Ishmael.
* Today the Jews and Arabs' conflict or great hostility also includes: After World War II, when the United Nations gave a portion of the land of Israel (the Gaza Strip) to the Jewish people, although the land was primarily inhabited by Arabs (the Palestines), the Arabs protested. More on the conflict .
* Britain controlled the Gaza Strip between 1517 - 1948.
* Israel has a right to exist as a Nation with its own land because God gave the land of Israel to the descendents of Isaac. Israel became a State in 1948.
On 12/26, Israeli jets target Gaza tunnels.
Embedded video from CNN Video
Arabs rally against Israeli raids .
More videos covering this Israeli-Gaza Strip attack.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May those who love you be secure." - Psalm 122:6
Obama could inherit the Gaza crisis. December 2008 Gaza Strip airstrikes .
Hamas is a terrorist organisation according to Israel, the U.S. and the EU. It is the largest Palestinian militant Islamist organisation, formed in 1987 at the beginning of the first intifada(a revolt that begun in December 1987 by Palestinian Arabs to protest Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip), or Palestinian uprising against Israel's occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza.
Hamas is committed to establishing an Islamic state in the whole of what it terms Palestine (post-1948 Israel, the West Bank and Gaza). Since its formation 1987 it has pursued a dual function: social welfare and what it calls armed resistance. This earned respect and gratitude among Palestinians suffering under Israeli occupation, but a string of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians meant it was designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the European Union.
Fatah is a Palestinian political and military organization founded by Yasser Arafat in 1958 to work toward the creation of a Palestinian state; during the 1960s and 1970s trained terrorist and insurgent groups; "al-Fatah carried out numerous acts of international terrorism in western Europe and the Middle East in the 1970s"
Fatah was founded to promote the armed struggle to liberate all Palestine from Israeli control. But they lost power in the 2006 parliamentary elections to Hamas, after Fatah officials came to be perceived as corrupt and incompetent.
President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas', goal is to establish a Palestinian state in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as capital.
Embedded video from CNN Video
The Gaza Strip has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since June 2007, when, following their democratic electoral victory, Hamas took control of the Palestinian territory in the course of the Battle of Gaza (2007) from rival Palestinian group Fatah.
The Gaza Strip has land borders with Israel and Egypt, and a sea border. Egypt and Israel largely keep their borders with the territory sealed. Israel allows only limited humanitarian supplies from aid organizations into the Strip.
Israel maintains that the blockade is necessary to limit Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip on its cities and to prevent Hamas from obtaining other weapons. Egypt maintains that it cannot open the Rafah crossing since opening the border would represent Egyptian recognition of the Hamas control of Gaza, undermine the legitimacy of the Palestinian National Authority and consecrate the split between Gaza and the West Bank.
The blockade has been criticized by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Human Rights Council and other human rights organizations. It is officially supported by the United States. Source
6.2.10 Netanyahu hotly defends flotilla raid. Netanyahu said this was not the 'love boat,' but a 'hate boat.' He said the aim of the six-ship flotilla was to break the border crossing blockade, not to bring aid to Gaza. If the blockade ended, he warned, hundreds of ships would bring in thousands of missiles from Iran, to be aimed at Israel and beyond. Israel rejects claims that Gaza — which has been under an Israeli and Egyptian border crossing blockade since the Islamic militant group, Hamas, seized power in 2007 — is experiencing a humanitarian crisis. Israel says it allows more than enough food, medicine and supplies into the territory.
6.2.10 Netanyahu Rejects Criticism of Deadly Raid on Gaza Activist Flotilla .
2014: Gaza-Israel conflict: What is the fighting about?
