NewsTracker Answers for week of Jan. 05, 2009

Q: Air strikes have killed more than 400 people in the Gaza Strip. Find the Gaza Strip on this map of Israel.

Circle the area on this map

Q: Who has been conducting the air strikes?

A. Israelis

B. Palestinians

C. Egyptians

D. Gazans

A. Israel said it launched the bombing raids after weeks attacks on Israelis by rockets fired from Gaza.

Q: Israel controlled the Gaza Strip from 1967 to 2005. Who ruled it before Israel?

A. Palestine

B. Egypt

C. Jordan

D. Syria

B. Egypt controlled the strip from 1948 until Israel captured it and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in a 1979 peace agreement, and it unilaterally ended its occupation of Gaza in 2005.

Q: Who controls the Gaza Strip now?

A. Egypt

B. Jordan

C. Hamas

D. Fatah

C. The Hamas group won parliamentary elections in Gaza and the West Bank in 2006. It was ousted from Palestinian National Authority government in the West Bank during 2007 fighting with its political rival, Fatah. Hamas maintained control of Gaza, and neither government recognizes the authority of the other.

Q: Which Palestinian government do the United States and European Union recognize as legitimate?

A. Hamas

B. Fatah

B. The U.S., EU and Israel support the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, has been listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., EU, Israel, Canada and Japan.