http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/13/walan313.xml

A troubled corner of a troubled world

By Tim Butcher, Middle East Correspondent

Last Updated: 2:14am BST 13/04/2007

The Gaza Strip is a pressure-cooker of a place where decades of resentment among Palestinians driven from their homes in neighbouring Israel often erupts into terrorism, fratricidal violence or criminal anarchy.

While not as spectacularly dangerous as parts of post-Saddam Iraq, the small strip of Mediterranean beachfront only 20 miles long and six miles deep is nevertheless one of the most troubled corners of a troubled region.

In 1948 its normal population of a few thousand was inundated by Palestinian refugees from villages and towns claimed by the brand new state of Israel.

Almost 60 years later those refugees and their offspring are still there, dispossessed, angry and resentful...[more]