Rising from the ashes: Gaza's Indestruvtible Spirit

Gaza, the idyllic strip of land by the Mediterranean Sea, was once a strategic and commercial center linking Egypt and Mesopotamia in the days when caravans of traders traversed the area. But it’s hard to glean evidence of those days. Since Israel illegally occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1967, the area has been plundered of the best it had to offer. Instead of being a robust stopover for wayfaring merchants, Gaza has become an open-air prison surrounded by concrete walls and razor wire, its 1.6 million inhabitants locked into an area roughly two-thirds the size of the city of Chicago.