Gaza City

Gaza City is the principal city and urban center of the Gaza Strip, occupying a position on the Mediterranean coast in the territory's northern portion.[1][2] The urban area includes the coastal Shati refugee camp and the neighborhoods of Rimal, Zeitoun, the old quarter, Shuja'iyya, Jabalia, and Sheikh Radwan.[5]

The city functions as the Gaza Strip's economic, communications, and transportation hub and contains a small port serving a local fishing fleet.[1] A 2010 Israeli security-establishment study described it as the principal administrative, political, military, and communications center of Hamas-controlled Gaza and estimated that it contained more than one-third of the Strip's population at that time.[6]

Gaza's location on the coastal routes linking Egypt with the Levant made it an important commercial center and a frequent object of conquest from antiquity onward.[2][3] In the modern era it served as a center of Egyptian and Israeli military administration and became the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in 1994.[7][1] Hamas has governed the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, since forcibly seizing control in 2007.[4]

Gaza's recorded history reaches back to ancient Egyptian rule. The city was held by Pharaoh Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE and appears in the Tell el-Amarna tablets as an Egyptian administrative center.[2] The National Library of Israel states that the Canaanites built the city and its harbor and that the Phoenicians valued them for their strategic location.[8]

After a period of Egyptian control, the Philistines settled Gaza and the surrounding area. The city became the southernmost member of the Philistine Pentapolis, the five principal Philistine cities that also included Ashkelon, Gath, Ashdod, and Ekron.[7][2] Biblical tradition associates Gaza with Samson's deeds and his death during the destruction of the temple of Dagon.[2]

Gaza later came under Israelite, Assyrian, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian control. Alexander the Great encountered strong resistance there in 332 BCE and, after capturing the city, sold its inhabitants into slavery. Gaza then served as a Ptolemaic outpost until Antiochus III captured it in 198 BCE.[2]

Ancient sources distinguish the city proper from an area called "Old Gaza," probably at Tell el-Ajjul, while archaeological evidence also indicates settlement at the city site from the Bronze Age onward.[2] In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Gaza's harbor was known as Neapolis, or "New City," and connected Mediterranean commerce with the Nabatean caravan routes from South Arabia, Petra, and Palmyra.[2]

Jonathan the Hasmonean attacked Gaza in 145 BCE. Alexander Yannai captured it in 96 BCE after a long siege, according to Encyclopedia.com. Pompey later restored the city, and the Roman general Gabinius rebuilt and fortified it in 57 BCE. Under Roman rule Gaza prospered and became known for its school of rhetoric.[2]

A synagogue at Gaza's harbor was paved with a mosaic dated to 508/509 CE. The mosaic depicts King David as Orpheus, dressed in Byzantine royal clothing and playing a lyre, with his name written in Hebrew. A Greek inscription names donors and refers to a holy place.[2] The structure was unearthed in 1965 in the former port area of Maiuma, now within the Rimal district. After Israel captured the Gaza Strip in 1967, the mosaic was moved to the Israel Museum for restoration and was later displayed at the Museum of the Good Samaritan.[9]

Arab forces defeated the Byzantines in a major battle near Gaza in 635 CE, and the city fell soon afterward. Jewish and Samaritan communities continued to flourish under Arab rule.[2] During the Crusader period Gaza was known as Gadres. It became a Templar stronghold under Baldwin III in 1152, was captured by Saladin in 1170, and later became the capital of a Mamluk district extending along the coastal plain toward Athlit.[2]

Gaza passed to Ottoman rule in the 16th century. The National Library of Israel states that its district belonged to the Jerusalem Mutasarrifate and that the city developed further after construction of the Palestine and Hejaz Railway in 1905.[8] An academic overview describes late Ottoman Gaza as an Eastern Mediterranean hub for people, goods, and ideas, populated by Muslim elites and commoners as well as Christian and Jewish minority communities.[10]

Jewish records document 60 Jewish householders and four Samaritans in 1481, a rabbi named Moses of Prague in 1488, and a Rabbanite synagogue in 1641. Israel Najara served as chief rabbi of Gaza in the mid-17th century, while Nathan of Gaza became a prominent follower of Shabbetai Zevi.[3] A 1926 report cited by the National Library of Israel recorded 51 Jews, including Ashkenazim and Sephardim, with their own elected council; before World War I the community had numbered close to 100.[11]

Ottoman forces made Gaza a major defensive position during World War I. British forces failed to capture it in March and April 1917. The Third Battle of Gaza began on October 27 with a naval bombardment involving 68 large-caliber guns aboard British and French ships. Ottoman forces evacuated the city on November 6, and British troops entered an abandoned and ruined Gaza.[12]

A British military cemetery was subsequently established in what is now the Tuffah neighborhood near Salah al-Din Road. It contains 3,691 graves, most belonging to soldiers killed during the three British attempts to capture the city.[12] Gaza then became part of the British Mandate for Palestine.[2]

World War I also disrupted Gaza's Jewish community. The National Library of Israel reports that most members held foreign citizenship and were expelled by the Ottoman government, while those with local citizenship were required to enlist or pay a heavy ransom.[11] Another National Library account states that approximately 18,000 Gazans returned after the war from about 29,000 who had been displaced to Jaffa and Haifa.[8]

The Jewish community was rebuilt after the war but ended after the anti-Jewish violence of 1929. Its members fled by truck to the railway station and boarded a train toward Lod; Encyclopedia.com likewise records that the last Jews left Gaza following the disturbances.[11][2]

Jewish communities existed in Gaza during the Talmudic, medieval, Ottoman, and early modern periods, as documented by surviving inscriptions, synagogue remains, traveler accounts, and communal records.[2][3] A separate historical account associates Kfar Darom, between Gaza and Khan Yunis, with a Talmudic-era Hebrew village and Rabbi Eliezer Ben Yitzhak.[7]

A Jerusalem Center for Foreign and Security Affairs account states that Jewish communities or settlements were present in the Gaza region during much of the Biblical, Second Temple, Roman and Talmudic periods, the Middle Ages, and the era of modern Zionism. It also states that Gaza appeared on maps of the Land of Israel and was considered a possible location for Zionist settlement.[13]

According to the same account, individual Zionist Jews and later the Jewish National Fund purchased approximately 250 dunams, or about 60 acres, along the Gaza Strip during the 1930s. Kfar Darom was established there in 1946 as part of the Eleven Points Plan. Its defenders endured a three-month Egyptian siege during Israel's War of Independence before abandoning the community after the Egyptian advance; it was reestablished in 1970 as part of the Gush Katif plan.[13]

The Jerusalem Center account further reports that Gush Katif had approximately 8,000 residents at the beginning of the 21st century and developed an advanced agricultural sector. Its greenhouse exports reportedly reached $200 million annually and represented 15 percent of Israel's agricultural exports.[13]

The United Nations partition plan of November 29, 1947 allocated a long coastal strip of British Mandate Palestine, including Gaza, to the proposed Arab state. Fighting during Israel's War of Independence left the southern portion in Egyptian hands, and the 1949 Israeli-Egyptian armistice established the Gaza Strip as a distinct territorial entity under Egyptian administration.[14][2]

The armistice line was not recognized as a permanent international boundary. It persisted because efforts to reach a peace agreement failed. Egypt sought the annexation of at least part of the Negev, while Israel considered annexing the Gaza Strip.[14] Egypt administered the Strip through a military government but did not treat it as Egyptian sovereign territory.[7]

The Strip's population changed substantially during and after the war. Encyclopedia.com records an estimated Gaza City population of 19,500 in 1946 and reports that refugees entering the Gaza Strip greatly increased the city's population. Its entries give differing estimates for the prewar population and refugee influx.[2] The 1967 census recorded 87,793 inhabitants in the city proper and 30,479 in a refugee camp within its municipal boundaries, including 1,649 Christians, with the remainder identified as Muslim.[2]

Israeli forces occupied the Gaza Strip during the Sinai Campaign in late October 1956. International pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union, and other governments led Israel to withdraw in March 1957, after which Egyptian military administration returned.[14]

Israel captured Gaza during the Six-Day War in June 1967. Gaza City fell by noon on June 6 after Israeli air attacks and ground assaults.[7] From 1967 through 1994, it served as the chief command station of Israeli forces administering the Gaza Strip. The city was also one of the focal points of the Palestinian uprising that began in December 1987.[7]

Under the Oslo framework, Israel ended its direct control over Gaza's Palestinian population in 1994, and the population came under the PLO-dominated Palestinian Authority. Yasser Arafat established his headquarters in Gaza, which became the headquarters of the new Palestinian Authority in May 1994.[7][1]

A contemporary White House background page described Gaza City as the Strip's transportation hub and as a commercial and economic center for citrus cultivation, other crops, street bazaars, and fishing.[1]

Israel began its unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip on August 17, 2005. By mid-September, approximately 8,000 Israeli civilians from all 21 settlements in the Strip had been evacuated.[4]

A Jerusalem Center account, which includes the evacuated communities in Northern Samaria as well as Gaza, places the total number removed at more than 9,000 and states that 22 settlements and approximately 2,500 homes were demolished. It also records the dismantling of the Gush Katif cemetery, the reburial of its dead, and the withdrawal of the final Israeli forces from Gaza.[13]

Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and, after violent conflict with Fatah, forcibly seized the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority in 2007.[4] Hamas has governed the Strip since then. Britannica states that Israel subsequently blockaded the territory and that Hamas maintained its dominance into the 2020s.[15]

A 2010 study by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center describes Gaza City as the principal administrative, political, military, and communications center of Hamas-controlled Gaza. It identifies Hamas headquarters, weapons-production and storage facilities, training areas, tunnels, rocket-launching sites, and territorial brigade structures in or near densely populated neighborhoods and civilian buildings, including houses, schools, mosques, and medical institutions.[6]

The study identifies Shifa Hospital in western Gaza City as the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip. It also describes the Islamic University as a Hamas political stronghold and an alleged center for political, military, and weapons-related activity.[6] These are the study's assessments, presented in its critique of the Goldstone Report, rather than independently established findings.

The ADL records major Israeli military operations against Hamas rocket attacks in 2008, 2012, and 2014, while Britannica describes conflicts since 2008 as having a devastating effect on Gaza City.[4][15] Following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, Gaza City became a central theater of the ensuing Israeli campaign.[5]

A September 15, 2025 report estimated Gaza City's population at approximately 800,000 and stated that about 300,000 Palestinians had left during preparations for an Israeli military operation. It said that between 100,000 and 300,000 were expected to remain; these were Israeli security and military estimates rather than census figures.[16]

A separate September 29 analysis characterized Gaza City as one of the last two major Hamas strongholds and reported that approximately 700,000 people had fled the city and surrounding areas toward southern Gaza after the operation was approved in August 2025.[5] The different figures referred to changing military estimates, different dates, and geographic areas extending beyond the municipal city.

Gaza City's population expanded substantially after the War of Independence and the arrival of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip. Encyclopedia.com records an estimated population of 19,500 in 1946. The 1967 census counted 87,793 residents in the city proper and 30,479 in a refugee camp within the municipal boundaries; 1,649 residents were identified as Christian and the remainder as Muslim.[2]

A 2010 Israeli security-establishment study estimated approximately 450,000 Palestinian residents, more than one-third of the Strip's population at the time.[6] Britannica recorded 652,597 residents in 2017.[15] A Jerusalem Center commentary citing 2014 statistics placed the city's density at approximately 16,500 people per square kilometer and compared it with more than 21,000 per square kilometer in Bnei Brak.[17]

Gaza's traditional economy included farming, fishing, small commerce, pottery, textiles, food processing, and citrus cultivation. Orchards, fields, and truck or kitchen gardens existed within the municipal area, while the city's small port served local fishermen. Gaza also functioned as the Strip's commercial and transportation center, with street bazaars serving regional trade.[1][2]

An academic overview of late Ottoman Gaza describes the city as a hub for people, goods, and ideas in the Eastern Mediterranean. Its social and cultural life included Muslim elites and commoners alongside Christian and Jewish minorities.[10] Jewish records also document local wine production, rabbinical institutions, and communal life during the medieval and Ottoman periods.[2][3]

The Great Mosque of Gaza, in the old city quarter, was built during the Crusader period and later converted into a mosque. Samson's Monument commemorates the Biblical figure associated with Gaza, while Al Jundi, the Square of the Unknown Soldier, was built by the Egyptian Army.[1]

A Byzantine-era synagogue dating to 508 CE was discovered in 1965 in the former port of Maiuma, now within the Rimal district. Its mosaic depicts King David playing a lyre and identifies him in Hebrew. After 1967 the mosaic was moved to the Israel Museum for restoration and was later displayed at the Museum of the Good Samaritan.[9]

The coastal Shati refugee camp forms part of the broader Gaza City urban area. Rimal, Zeitoun, Shuja'iyya, Jabalia, Sheikh Radwan, and the historic old quarter are among the neighborhoods and districts associated with the city.[5]

An academic history characterizes Gaza City, the Gaza Strip, and the adjoining frontier as products of the wartime territorial transformation that divided the southern coastal region of British Mandate Palestine into areas separated by an armistice line and recurring violence. It describes the region as a continuing focal point of the Israeli-Arab conflict.[14]

The city's strategic importance is rooted in its position on routes between Egypt and the Land of Israel. Ancient and medieval sources record repeated contests for Gaza by Egyptian, Israelite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Crusader, Mamluk, and Ottoman powers.[2][3] In the modern period it served as a headquarters for Egyptian and Israeli military administration and as the first headquarters of the Palestinian Authority.[7][1] Since 2007 it has been the governing center of Hamas-controlled Gaza, from which the terrorist organization has conducted repeated attacks against Israel.[4]

Israeli security assessments allege that Hamas embedded command centers, weapons facilities, tunnels, and rocket-launching positions within Gaza City's civilian environment.[6] Those allegations are contested and remain source-specific. By September 2025, the city was again the focus of a major Israeli operation directed against what an analysis described as one of Hamas's last two major strongholds.[5]

Several aspects of Gaza City's ancient history rest on Biblical tradition or later historical interpretation. Accounts concerning Samson and the Philistine period should be distinguished from archaeological findings.[2] Sources also differ on Hasmonean chronology: the BESA Center dates Alexander Jannaeus's conquest to 101 BCE, while Encyclopedia.com gives 96 BCE.[7][2] The identification of the harbor mosaic building as a synagogue is based on the mosaic's Hebrew and Greek inscriptions and remains an archaeological interpretation.[2]

Accounts of Jewish settlement activity in the Gaza region, including Zionist land purchases and Gush Katif's economic history, are presented in the cited Jerusalem Center source from an explicit ideological perspective and have therefore been attributed to that source.[13] Encyclopedia.com itself contains conflicting prewar population figures, giving both approximately 19,500 and 65,000, while its refugee-influx estimates range from approximately 190,000 to 250,000.[2]

Descriptions of Hamas infrastructure in hospitals, schools, mosques, and the Islamic University derive from an Israeli security-oriented study produced during the debate over the Goldstone Report and are politically and evidentially contested.[6] Modern sources also use differing terms—including occupation, military administration, Palestinian Authority governance, and Hamas control—to characterize Gaza's changing political status.[7][1]