Social Resilience in the Jewish Communities around the Gaza Strip Envelope during and after Operation Protective Edge

This study examines and measures the social resilience of the residents of the Gaza Strip area during Operation Protective Edge in summer 2014 and thereafter. We provide an overview of the concept of resilience, focusing on the phenomenon of bouncing back towards recovery following the functional decline as a result of stressful events. Social resilience is measured here by three behavioral yardsticks: demographics and evacuation, therapeutics and education, and employment and economics. We chose two regional councils to represent the people living in the Gaza envelope, in direct proximity to the Gaza Strip. We collected the data through interviews with council employees, residents in these regional councils, and from the media. Although the residents in the two councils behaved in different manners, the level of behavioral resilience monitored in most of the localities was generally high, whereas the level of psychological-communal resilience.