Gaza City

As of January 2025, as part of the Israel–Hamas war, the Israeli army has bombed large portions of the city and surrounding areas of the Northern Gaza Strip, destroying many buildings and infrastructure.[10] The name Gaza first appears in military records of Thothmes III of Egypt in the 15th century BC,[11] and was mentioned in the Amarna correspondence as Āl Ĥazzati and other variant spellings.[15] The ע‎ in the root ע-ז-ז‎ corresponds to a Proto-Semitic *ʻ sound (compare Hebrew עַז‎ ʻaz with Arabic عَزَّ‎ ʻazza, both meaning "to be strong, powerful, mighty"), while it is clear from city's name in Arabic (غَزَّة‎, Ḡazza), Greek (Γάζα, Gáza), and Egyptian (gꜣḏꜣtw) that the name of Gaza was likely originally pronounced with an initial /ʁ/ sound in Hebrew, and thus can't have been from the same ע-ז-ז‎ root as עַז‎ ʻaz.Alexander the Great besieged Gaza, the last city to resist his conquest on his path to Egypt, for five months before finally capturing it 332 BC;[20] the inhabitants were either killed or taken captive.In 277 BC, following Ptolemy II's successful campaign against the Nabataeans the Ptolemaic fortress of Gaza took control of the spice trade with Gerrha and Southern Arabia.Gaza experienced another siege in 96 BC by the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus who "utterly overthrew" the city, killing 500 senators who had fled into the temple of Apollo for safety.[23] Josephus notes that Gaza was resettled under the rule of Antipater, who cultivated friendly relations with Gazans, Ascalonites and neighboring cities after being appointed governor of Idumaea by Jannaeus.[28] During his visit in 130 AD,[29] Emperor Hadrian personally inaugurated wrestling, boxing, and oratorical competitions in Gaza's new stadium,[dubious – discuss] which became known from Alexandria to Damascus.[38] In c. 638 Gaza was captured by Arab Muslim forces under Amr ibn al-As, in the years following the Battle of Ajnadayn between the Byzantine Empire and the Rashidun Caliphate in central Palestine.Believed to be the site where Muhammad's great-grandfather Hashim ibn Abd Manaf was buried, Gaza was not destroyed and its inhabitants were not attacked by Amr's army despite the city's stiff and lengthy resistance, though its Byzantine garrison was massacred.[42] In 767 Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i was born in Gaza and lived his early childhood there; he founded the Shafi'i religious code, one of the four major Sunni Muslim schools of law (fiqh).Although alcohol was banned in Islam, the Jewish and Christian communities were allowed to maintain wine production, and grapes, a major cash crop of the city, were exported mainly to Egypt.[51][52] In 1348 the bubonic plague spread to the city, killing the majority of its inhabitants and in 1352, Gaza suffered from a destructive flood, which was rare in that arid part of Palestine.[58] Under Ahmad ibn Ridwan, the city became a cultural and religious center as a result of the partnership between the governor and prominent Islamic jurist Khayr al-Din al-Ramli, who was based in the nearby town of al-Ramla.[60] During the rule of Husayn Pasha, strife between the settled population and the nearby Bedouin tribes was dramatically reduced, allowing Gaza to peacefully prosper.In 1957, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser made a number of reforms in Gaza, which included expanding educational opportunities and the civil services, providing housing, and establishing local security forces.[100] Some of the older buildings in Gaza's Old City use the ablaq style of decoration which features alternating layers of red and white masonry, prevalent in the Mamluk era.[116] The following census, which was conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities shows a sharp decrease in population which stood at 17,480 residents (16,722 Muslims, 701 Christians, 54 Jews and three Metawilehs).[68] During the Fatimid period, Shia Islam was dominant in Gaza, but after Saladin conquered the city in 1187, he promoted a strictly Sunni religious and educational policy, which at the time was instrumental in uniting his Arab and Turkish soldiers.[9] The report cited a number of economic indicators to illustrate the point: In 2008, 95% of Gaza's industrial operations were suspended due to lack of access inputs for production and export problems.[140][141] The Levant Basin on the Mediterranean Sea, which includes coastal regions of Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, is estimated to have 1.7 billion barrels (270,000,000 m3) of oil.[140][141] A large number of people used to believe that, Gaza's oil and gas reserves is the reason for Israel's offensive on the territory, also described as a potential genocidal campaign.The A. M. Qattan Foundation, a Palestinian arts charity, runs several workshops in Gaza to develop young artistic talent and impart drama skills to teachers.Poverty has also played an important role in determining many of the city's simple meatless dishes and stews, such as saliq wa adas ("chard and lentils") and bisara (skinless fava beans mashed with dried mulukhiya leaves and chilies).It is also a key ingredient in sayyadiya, rice cooked with caramelized onions, a generous amount of whole garlic cloves, large chunks of well-marinated fried fish, and spices such as turmeric, cinnamon, and cumin.Black or blue cottons or striped pink and green fabric that had been made in Majdal continued to be woven throughout the Gaza Strip by refugees from the coastal plain villages until the 1960s.The most popular motifs included: scissors (muqass), combs (mushut) and triangles (hijab) often arranged in clusters of fives, sevens and threes, as the use of odd numbers is considered in Arab folklore to be effective against the evil eye.In January 2008, the United Nations Children's Fund reported that schools in Gaza had been canceling classes that were high on energy consumption, such as information technology, science labs and extra curricular activities.[186] When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip after occupying it in the 1956 Suez Crisis, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser had al-Shifa hospital expanded and improved.[9] In 2010, a team of doctors from Al-Durrah Hospital in Gaza spent a year of training at the cystic fibrosis clinic at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.