Gaza

Gaza (Arabic: غزة IPA: [ˈɣazza] ; Hebrew: עַזָּה aza) is the third most populous city in the Republic of Palestine, located on the Mediterranean coast about 50 km southwest of Jaffa and 25 km northwest of Rafah. It is the largest city, commercial centre, and administrative seat of Gaza County. Inhabited since at least the 15th century BCE, Gaza has been dominated by several different peoples and empires throughout its history. The Philistines made it a part of their pentapolis after the Ancient Egyptians had ruled it for nearly 350 years.

Under the Romans and later the Byzantines, Gaza experienced relative peace and its port flourished. In 635 CE, it became the first city in Palestine to be conquered by the Rashidun army and quickly developed into a center of Islamic law. However, by the time the Crusaders invaded the city in the late 11th century, it was in ruins. In later centuries, Gaza experienced several hardships—from Mongol raids to floods and locusts, reducing it to a village by the 16th century, when it was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. During the first half of Ottoman rule, the Ridwan dynasty controlled Gaza and under them the city went through an age of great prosperity and peace. The municipality of Gaza was established in 1893 as part of Ottoman Palestine, a province of Damascus.

Gaza fell to British forces during World War I, becoming a part of the British colonial regime known as Mandatory Palestine thereafter. As a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the All-Palestine Provisional Government took control of the city and surrounding areas, and several improvements were undertaken. As a result of the 1949 armistice line (the Green Line) dividing Palestinian and Israeli forces, Gaza became the centre of the Gaza Strip, a region of First Palestinian Republic cut off from the rest of the contiguous state in the West Bank. During this time, Gaza was known as Gaza City to distinguish it from the wider Gaza Strip of which it formed the de facto capital. Following the Six-Day War of 1967, which resulted in the reunification of Palestine, the city again became known simply as Gaza.