The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions in the world, with an estimated population of over 2.2 million in an area measuring just 141 square miles in total, meaning buildings in its urban areas are tightly grouped together.
By that U.N. population approximation, there are on average around 15,600 people in every square mile of the territory. Compared to many sprawling cities in the U.S., the area it occupies is relatively minute.
The Israeli government claims an area of 8,630 square miles, including the contested Golan Heights region claimed by Syria. It has an estimated population of 9.1 million, with density of around 1,135 people on average per square mile, owing to the nation's rural and desert regions, according to census statistics.
When its footprint is overlaid onto New York City, it covers an area roughly the size of Manhattan, the Bronx and Hoboken, New Jersey, combined.
In contrast, the south of the Hamas-controlled region—which includes the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis—covers nearly the entirety of Washington D.C. When compared to Boston, its shape and area spans from Route 93 to the south to Route 95 in the north.
For many of the larger American cities, which have traditionally expanded into open countryside over time, the whole of Gaza fits within their borders.
From its northern to southern borders, a distance of roughly 25 miles, its footprint would stretch from Hermosa Beach to Pasadena in Los Angeles. Compared to Denver, it would reach from the southwestern outskirts of Lakewood to the northeastern satellite town of Henderson.
Even next to Seattle, which similarly follows a north-south footprint, it would cover an area from the city's Sea–Tac International Airport to the Greenwood neighborhood, near Green Lake.
The only cities among the eight that have a total area smaller than Gaza are Washington D.C., Boston and St. Petersburg, Florida.
When it comes to estimated population density, there are on average more people per square mile in Gaza than all eight cities mapped by Newsweek—in most cases, by around a factor of three.
Seattle and Detroit are fewer than 2 square miles larger than Gaza, not including their suburbs and satellite cities.
As experts have already suggested, this makes an anticipated Israeli invasion of the region and the humanitarian situation already occurring there uniquely challenging for the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and aid organizations.
After Israel suffered its deadliest attack in decades at the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants at the weekend, it conducted an intensive campaign of airstrikes on Gaza.
As of Wednesday, the health ministry in Gaza says more than 1,050 people have been killed by the strikes and in excess of 5,100 injured, according to The Associated Press. The U.N. says 250,000 have been displaced, as Israel forewarns civilians in areas it is targeting to leave ahead of the air strikes.
However, Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has suggested his country is preparing a much larger offensive on the region.
"We have only started striking Hamas," he said in a televised address on Monday. "What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations."
While the Israeli government has not commented on speculation it could be preparing a ground invasion of Gaza, video footage has emerged on social media that appears to show a massing of Israeli military equipment near the border with the territory. Some 300,000 reservists have been called up after the nation declared war on Hamas.
Military and strategy analysts have said that any potential ground incursion by the IDF could pit them against well-entrenched and well-prepared Hamas fighters in a compact setting, and could risk a high number of civilian casualties owing to Gaza's densely-packed urban areas.
Despite concerns of a power vacuum in Gaza—which has been governed by Hamas since 2006—due to the removal of the Palestinian organization by force, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. and a member of Netanyahu's ruling party told Newsweek on Wednesday it has "no intention to hold Gaza" permanently.