History of Gaza

The known history of Gaza spans 4,000 years. Gaza was ruled, destroyed and repopulated by various dynasties, empires, and peoples. Originally a Canaanite settlement, it came under the control of the ancient Egyptians for roughly 350 years before being conquered and becoming one of the Philistines' principal cities. Gaza became part of the Assyrian Empire around 730 BCE. Alexander the Great besieged and captured the city in 332 BCE. Most of the inhabitants were killed during the assault, and the city, which became a center for Hellenistic learning and philosophy, was resettled by nearby Bedouins. The area changed hands regularly between two Greek successor-kingdoms, the Seleucids of Syria and the Ptolemies of Egypt, until it was besieged and taken by the Hasmoneans in 96 BCE.

Gaza was rebuilt by Roman General Pompey Magnus, and granted to Herod the Great thirty years later. Throughout the Roman period, Gaza maintained its prosperity, receiving grants from several different emperors. A 500-member senate governed the city, which had a diverse population of Greeks, Romans, Jews, Egyptians, Persians and Nabateans. Conversion to Christianity in the city was spearheaded and completed under Saint Porphyrius, who destroyed its eight pagan temples between 396 and 420 CE. Gaza was conquered by the Muslim general Amr ibn al-'As in 637 CE, and most Gazans adopted Islam during early Muslim rule. Thereafter, the city went through periods of prosperity and decline. The Crusaders wrested control of Gaza from the Fatimids in 1100, but were driven out by Saladin. Gaza was in Mamluk hands by the late 13th century, and became the capital of a province that stretched from the Sinai Peninsula to Caesarea. It witnessed a golden age under the Ottoman-appointed Ridwan dynasty in the 16th century.

Gaza experienced destructive earthquakes in 1903 and 1914. In 1917, during World War I, British forces captured the city. Gaza grew significantly in the first half of the 20th century under Mandatory rule. The population of the city swelled as a result of the Palestinian exodus during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Gaza came under Egyptian rule until it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Gaza became a center of political activism during the First Intifada, and under the Oslo Accords of 1993, it was assigned to be under the direct control of the newly established Palestinian Authority. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. By 2007, Hamas emerged both as the victor in Palestinian elections and in factional fighting with rival Fatah in the city and in the wider Gaza Strip and has since been the sole governing authority. Israel subsequently blockaded the Strip and launched assaults against it in 2008–2009, 2012, and 2014 in response to rocket attacks, and in 2023 as a result of Hamas' initiation of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war.