Gaza

Gaza is an Israeli territory fronting the Mediterranean Sea and bordering Egypt, populated almost entirely by Palestinian Muslims and Christians. A mere 25 miles (1 mile = 1.61 kilometers) long and 4–7 miles wide, what is now known as the Gaza Strip might aptly be likened to a large metropolis, yet its miniature dimensions belie the area's global political and religious significance, past and present. The early history of the Gaza Strip is still being written, and relatively little is known about some periods even as new archaeological discoveries are continually being made, some extending as far back as the Early Bronze Age. As the control point of an ancient route between Asia and Africa, the narrow strip of land has been fought over by numerous powers from the Egyptian pharaohs to the Philistines, the Israelites to the Assyrians, Alexander the Great to Herod the Great, and Napoleon to Hulagu Khan. Since the 1948 war, Gaza has been a major locus of struggle and contestation between Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews, and, presently, Palestinian Islamists and Palestinian nationalists. It is bordered on the north and east by Israel, on the south by Egypt, and on the west by the Mediterranean Sea. The population numbers approximately 1.5 million, many of whom are refugees, although no accurate census has been taken for many years. Seventy-five percent of Gazans are under the age of 25 and 99% are Sunnī Muslim.

The religious history of the strip is rich and complex and cannot be separated from its political history. Gaza's denizens have included Jews, Christians, and Muslims as well as adherents of Semitic religions about which we know relatively little today, including that centered on Dagon, which figures in the biblical story of Samson, the blinded Israelite who wreaks revenge on the Philistines by bringing down their god's temple in Gaza. Numerous archaeological sites, many of which feature large, impressive mosaics, attest to a long tradition of Christian monasticism in Gaza and the vicinity, a movement that began perhaps as early as the third century CE and flourished with the Christianization of Gaza in the beginning of the fifth century CE. Gaza was captured and held by the Arabs from the 7th century until the 12th century, when it was taken by the Crusaders. For the next three centuries, the city was destroyed numerous times and was fought over by the Ayyubids, the Mongols, and the Mamluks. From the 16th through the mid-20th century, it was controlled by the Ottoman Turks.

The modern presence of the Jews in Gaza began during the Ottoman Empire, when Turkish authorities encouraged both Spanish and Turkish Jews to settle in the area. Their status changed during World War I, with the British defeat of the Turks. During the war, the strip was the scene of a particularly vicious battle between the two armies that left the banks of the Wadi Gaza littered with 15,000 corpses in the space of 2 days, neither side having gained an inch of territory. Under British rule, Jews were forbidden to live in Gaza. They returned, nevertheless, and in 1946 reestablished Kfar Darom, which had been destroyed during the Arab revolt in the late 1930s. Two years later, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Pan-Islamist movement established in Egypt in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna, entered Gaza in the vanguard of the invading Egyptian army, embarking on its first jihad against the nascent Israel, a struggle that has continued [Page 434]into the 21st century. Beginning in 1951, Palestinian nationalist fighters known as fida'iyun launched a series of attacks against Israeli targets from locations in Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. In 1956, in response to these incursions, Israel initiated the Sinai Campaign and was joined by France and Britain, which were alarmed at Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal.

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