The modern chapter is where most public argument begins, but it is also the chapter most often compressed into slogans. After World War I, Gaza became part of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Mandate text itself, preserved by the Office of the Historian, shows the legal framework Britain was meant to administer. The broader UN historical archive at UNISPAL is useful for tracing how that framework unraveled into war, partition, and competing political claims.
After the 1948 war, Gaza fell under Egyptian administration rather than becoming an independent sovereign Palestinian state. Britannica’s Gaza Strip entry is clear on the basic sequence: British Mandate, Egyptian control after 1948, Israeli capture in 1967, and later changes under the Oslo process and disengagement. That sequence is one reason historians and legal analysts try to distinguish carefully between the population of Gaza, Palestinian national claims, and the formal governing status of the territory at different moments.
The Oslo period introduced limited Palestinian self-rule in parts of Gaza beginning in the mid-1990s, but it did not produce a stable sovereign settlement. Israel withdrew its settlements and permanent military presence from inside Gaza in 2005. Palestinians then held a legislative election in 2006, Hamas won, and in 2007 Hamas seized Gaza from Fatah by force. The Congressional Research Service summary on the Palestinians and U.S. policy issues is one of the cleanest concise sources for that modern sequence.
That history matters because today’s war is being argued over on top of that record. Gaza is home to Palestinian civilians whose dignity and safety matter. It is also a territory that has been ruled by Hamas since 2007, with no new national legislative election since 2006 and no political reunification with the West Bank. Good teaching has to hold both truths at once. Once the chronology is clear, readers can argue about justice, sovereignty, or reform on a firmer factual floor.