Many? Here’s a full list of independent states that are not larger in land area than that:
Vatican City, Monaco, Nauru, Tuvalu, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis, Maldives, Malta, and Grenada
There's nothing about contrivance. The initial claim was that Gazans should be happy in a country of 141 sq miles, with 2.4 million people, making it one of the densest populations on earth...
... while the Israel government routinely turns off electricity to the entire country for days at a time, and at times the fresh water. The miracle there is that there aren't epidemics just ravaging the population.