From 1948 to 1967, residents of Egyptian Sinai and neighbouring Gaza considered the area as a single territory. But in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Israel captured Sinai and the Gaza Strip. Twelve years later, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty which returned control of Sinai to Egypt; but the Israeli occupation of Gaza continued. In 1982, a wall was built to separate the two territories – a wall which still stands today. «They started building the wall at midday,» says Alaa Attiya Issa, recalling that day in April 1982. «I was at my uncle’s house on the Palestinian side of Rafah. At 11:15am my uncle said ‘They’ll close the border at midday. You’d better go home now so you don’t get stuck’. I said goodbye and cried.»