Gaza also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories. Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC, 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 AD, it became the first city in Palestine to be conquered by the Rashidun army and quickly developed into a centre of Islamic law. However, by the time the Crusaders invaded the city, 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 commerce and peace.
Throughout its history, Gaza has never been self-ruled or independent. Gaza fell to British forces during World War I, becoming a part of the British Mandate of Palestine. As a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Egypt administered the newly formed Gaza Strip territory and several improvements were undertaken in the city. Gaza was captured by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967, but in 1993, the city was transferred to the Palestinian National Authority. Following the 2006 election, conflict broke out as the Fatah party seemed unwilling to transfer power to Hamas, resulting in Hamas taking power in Gaza by force. Since then Gaza has been under a blockade by Israel and Egypt.
The primary economic activities of Gaza are small-scale industries, agriculture and labor. However, the economy has been devastated by the blockade and recurring conflicts. Most of Gaza's inhabitants adhere to Islam, although there exists a Christian minority. Gaza has a very young population with roughly 75% being under the age of 25, and today the city has one of the highest population densities in the world.
Gaza's history of habitation dates back 5,000 years, making it one of the oldest cities in the world. Located on the Mediterranean coastal route between North Africa and the Levant, for most of its history it served as a key entrepôt of the southern Levant and an important stopover on the spice trade route traversing the Red Sea.
Geography
Central Gaza is situated on a low-lying and round hill with an elevation of 45 feet (14 m) above sea level. Much of the modern city is built along the plain below the hill, especially to the north and east, forming Gaza's suburbs. The beach and the port of Gaza are located 3 kilometers (2 mi) west of the city's nucleus and the space in between is entirely built up on low-lying hills.
Gaza is 78 kilometers (48 mi) southwest of Jerusalem, 71 kilometers (44 mi) south of Tel Aviv, and 30 kilometers (19 mi) north of Rafah. Surrounding localities include Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia to the north, and the village of Abu Middein, the refugee camp of Bureij, and the city of Deir al-Balah to the south.
The municipal jurisdiction of the city today constitutes about 45 square kilometers (17.4 sq mi). In the British Mandate era, Gaza's urban or "built-up" area consisted of 7,960 square kilometers (3,073.4 sq mi), while its rural area was 143,063 square kilometers (55,236.9 sq mi). Irrigated land made up 24,040 square kilometers (9,281.9 sq mi) and lands planted with cereals made up 117,899 square kilometers (45,521.1 sq mi).
The population of Gaza depends on groundwater as the only source for drinking, agricultural use, and domestic supply. The nearest stream is Wadi Ghazza to the south, sourced from Abu Middein along the coastline. It bears a small amount of water during the winter and virtually no water during the summer. Most of its water supply is diverted into Israel. The Gaza Aquifer along the coast is the main aquifer in the Gaza Strip and it consists mostly of Pleistocene sandstones. Like most of the Gaza Strip, Gaza is covered by quaternary soil; clay minerals in the soil absorb many organic and inorganic chemicals which has partially alleviated the extent of groundwater contamination.
A well-known hill southeast of Gaza, known as Tell al-Muntar, has an elevation of 270 feet (82 m) above sea level. For centuries it has been claimed as the place to which Samson brought the city gates of the Philistines. The hill is crowned by a Muslim shrine (maqam) dedicated to Ali al-Muntar ("Ali of the Watchtower"). There are old Muslim graves around the surrounding trees, and the lintel of the doorway of the maqam has two medieval Arabic scriptures.
Demographics
According to Ottoman tax records in 1557, Gaza had 2,477 male tax payers. The statistics from 1596 show that the Muslims consisted of 456 household heads, 115 bachelors, 59 religious persons, and 19 disabled persons. In addition to the Muslim figure were 141 jundiyan or soldiers in the Ottoman army. Of the Christians there were 294 household heads and seven bachelors, while there were 73 Jewish household heads and eight Samaritan household heads. In total, an estimated 6,000 people lived in Gaza, making it the third largest city in Ottoman Palestine after Jerusalem and Safad.
In 1838, there were roughly 4,000 Muslim and 100 Christian tax payers, implying a population of about 15,000 or 16,000—making it larger than Jerusalem at the time. The total number of Christian families was 57. Before the outbreak of World War I, the population of Gaza had reached 42,000; however, the fierce battles between Allied Forces and those of the Ottomans and the Germans in 1917 in Gaza resulted in a massive population decrease.
According to a 1997 census by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), Gaza and the adjacent al-Shati camp had a population of 353,115 inhabitants, of which 50.9% were males and 49.1% females. Gaza had an overwhelmingly young population with more than half being between the ages of infancy to 19 (60.8%). About 28.8% were between the ages of 20 to 44, 7.7% between 45 and 64, and 3.9% were over the age of 64.
A significant number of Gaza's pre-1948 residents were Egyptians or their descendants who had fled political turmoil in Muhammad Ali's Egypt. A massive influx of Palestinian refugees swelled Gaza's population after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. By 1967, the population had grown to about six times its 1948 size. In 1997, 51.8% of Gaza's inhabitants were refugees or their descendants. The city's population has continued to increase since that time to 449,221 in 2009, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories. Gaza has one of the highest overall growth rates and population densities in the world: 9,982.69/km² (26,424.76/mi²). Poverty, unemployment and poor living conditions are widespread and many residents rely on United Nations food aid to survive.
The population of Gaza is overwhelmingly composed of Muslims, who mostly follow Sunni Islam. While held by the Fatimids, Shia Islam was dominant in Gaza, but after Saladin conquered the city, he promoted a strictly Sunni religious and educational policy, which at the time was instrumental in uniting his Arab and Turkish soldiers.
There exists a small minority of about 3,500 Palestinian Christians in the city. The majority of Gaza's Christians live in the Zaytoun Quarter of the Old City and belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, Roman Catholic, and Baptist denominations. In 1906, there were only 750 Christians, of which 700 were Orthodox and 50 were Roman Catholic.
Gaza's Jewish community was roughly 3,000 years old, and in 1481 there were sixty Jewish households. Most of them left Gaza after the 1929 Palestine riots, when they consisted of fifty families. In Sami Hadawi's land and population survey, Gaza had a population of 34,250, including 80 Jews in 1945. Most of them left the city after the 1948 War, due to mutual distrust between them and the Arab majority.
Economy
Gaza was among six soap-producing cities in Palestine, overshadowed by Nablus. Gaza's factories purchased qilw from merchants from Nablus and Salt, Jordan. Gaza's port was eclipsed by the ports of Jaffa and Haifa, however, it retained its fishing fleet. Although its port was inactive, commerce thrived because of its strategic location. Most caravans and travelers coming from Egypt stopped in Gaza for supplies, likewise Bedouins from Ma'an, east of the Wadi Araba, bought up all sorts of provisions from the city to sell to Muslim pilgrims coming from Mecca. The bazaars of Gaza were well-supplied and were noted by Edward Robinson as "far better" than those of Jerusalem. Its principal commercial crop was cotton which was sold to the government and local Arab tribes.
Culture
The Rashad Shawa Cultural Center, located in Rimal, was completed in 1988 and named after its founder, former mayor Rashad al-Shawa. A two-story building with a triangular plan, the cultural centers performs three main functions: a meeting place for large gatherings during annual festivals, a place to stage exhibitions, and a library. The French Cultural Center is a symbol of French partnership and cooperation in Gaza. It holds art exhibits, concerts, film screenings, and other activities. Whenever possible, French artists are invited to display their artwork, and more frequently, Palestinian artists from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are invited to participate in art competitions.
Established in 1998, the Arts and Crafts Village is a children's cultural center with the objectives of promoting comprehensive, regular and periodic documentation of creative art in all of its forms. It interacted on a large scale with a class of artists from different nationalities and organized around 100 exhibitions for creative art, ceramics, graphics, carvings and others. Nearly 10,000 children from throughout the Gaza Strip have benefited from the Arts and Crafts Village.
Gaza has one film theater, the Gaza Theater, which opened in 2004 using donated equipment and movies from Norway. The theater is not properly equipped and does not receive much funding from the PNA, depending mostly on donations from foreign aid agencies. The Qattan Foundation, a Palestinian arts charity, runs several workshops throughout Gaza that helps the local youth find artistic skills and give teachers basic drama skills. In 2005, the Gaza Theater Festival was held, playing in makeshift venues, although no foreign theater companies attended, as well as any company from the West Bank or Israel's Arab community.
The Gaza Museum of Archaeology, founded by Jawdat N. Khoudary, was opened in the summer of 2008. The exhibition is in a hall made partly of stones from old houses, discarded wood ties of a former railroad, and bronze lamps and marble columns uncovered by Gazan fishermen and construction workers. The museum collection features thousands of items, but some will not go on display, including a statue of a full-breasted Aphrodite in a diaphanous gown, images of other ancient deities and oil lamps featuring menorahs.
Cuisine
Gaza's cuisine is characterized by its generous use of spices and chillies. Other major flavors and ingredients include dill, chard, garlic, cumin, lentils, chickpeas, pomegranates, sour plums and tamarind. Many of the traditional dishes rely on clay-pot cooking, which preserves the flavor and texture of the vegetables and results in fork-tender meat. Traditionally, most Gazan dishes are seasonal and rely on ingredients indigenous to the area and its surrounding villages. 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).
Seafood is a key aspect of Gaza life and a local staple, but in recent years, due to Israeli restrictions on Palestinian fishing zones off Gaza’s coast, the industry has been in decline, and seafood prices have skyrocketed. Some well-known seafood dishes include zibdiyit gambari, literally, "shrimps in a clay pot", and shatta which are crabs stuffed with red hot chili pepper dip, then baked in the oven. Fish is either fried or grilled after being stuffed with cilantro, garlic, chillies and cumin, and marinated with various spices. 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.
Many of the 1948-era refugees were fellahin ("peasants") who would rely on eating seasonally, based on what they grew and these refugees highly influenced the basic cuisine of Gaza. Due to its geographic isolation from the rest of Palestine, as a result of decades of occupation, many of its dishes have not been heard of outside of Gaza. One of the most popular dishes is called sumaghiyyeh.
Gaza has several restaurants, most of the well-known located in the posh Rimal district. Al-Andalus, which specializes in fish and seafood, is particularly popular with tourists, as are al-Sammak and the upscale Roots Club. Throughout the Old City there are street stalls that sell cooked beans, hummus, roasted sweet potatoes, falafel, and kebabs. Coffeehouses (qahwa) regularly accommodate locals with hookah (sheesha), Arabic coffee, and tea. Gaza's well-known sweet shops, Saqqala and Arafat, sell common Arab sweet products and are located off Wehda Street. Alcohol is a rarity, found only in the United Nations Beach Club.
Gauze is reputed to have originated in Gaza. Cloth for the Gaza thob was often woven at nearby Majdal (Ascalon). 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. Thobs here had narrow, tight, straight sleeves. Embroidery was much less dense than that applied in Hebron. 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.
Education
According to the PCBS, in 1997, approximately over 90% of Gaza's population over the age of 10 was literate. Of the city's population, 140,848 were enrolled in schools (39.8% in elementary school, 33.8% in secondary school, and 26.4% in high school). About 11,134 people received bachelor diplomas or higher diplomas.
In 2006, there were 210 schools in Gaza; 151 were run by the Education Ministry of the Palestinian National Authority, 46 were run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and 13 were private schools. A total of 154,251 students were enrolled and 5,877 teachers were employed. The currently downtrodden economy has affected education in the Gaza Strip severely. In September 2007, a UNRWA survey in the Gaza Strip revealed that there was a nearly 80% failure rate in schools grades four to nine, with up to 90% failure rates in mathematics. 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.
Gaza has four universities: al-Azhar University - Gaza, al-Quds Open University, al-Aqsa University and the Islamic University of Gaza. The Islamic University, consisting of ten facilities, was founded by Ahmed Yassin and a group of businessmen in 1978, making it the first institution of higher education in Gaza. In 2006-07, it had an enrollment of 20,021 students. Al-Azhar is generally secular and was founded in 1992. Al-Aqsa University was established in 1991. Al-Quds Open University established its Gaza Educational Region campus in 1992 in a rented building in the center of the city originally with 730 students. Because of the rapid increase of the number of students, it constructed the first university owned building in the Nasser District. In 2006-07, it had an enrollment of 3,778 students.
The Public Library of Gaza is located off al-Wahda Street and has a collection of nearly 10,000 books in Arabic, English and French. A total area of about 1,410 square metres (15,200 sq ft), the building consists of two floors and a basement. The library was opened in 1999 after cooperation dating from 1996 by Gaza under mayor Aoun Shawa, the municipality of Dunkerque, and the World Bank. The library's primary objectives are to provide sources of information that meets the needs of beneficiaries, provide necessary facilities for access to available information sources, and organizing various cultural programs such as, cultural events, seminars, lectures, film presentations, videos, art and book exhibitions.
Health care
One of the first hospitals in Gaza was al-Shifa ("the Cure") founded in the Rimal District by the British Mandate government in the 1940s. Housed in an army barracks, it originally provided quarantine and treatment for febrile diseases. When Egypt administered Gaza, this original department was relocated and al-Shifa became the city's central hospital. 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. He also ordered the establishment of a second hospital in the Nasser District with the same name. In 1957, the quarantine and febrile disease hospital was rebuilt and named Nasser Hospital. Today, al-Shifa remains Gaza's largest medical complex.
Throughout the late 1950s, a new health administration, Bandar Gaza ("Gaza Region"), was established and headed by Haidar Abdel-Shafi. Bandar Gaza rented several rooms throughout the city to set up government clinics, but they were fairly basic, just providing essential curative care.
The Ahli Arab Hospital, originally founded in 1907 by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), was destroyed in World War I. It was rebuilt as the Southern Baptist Hospital in the 1950s. In 1982, the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem took leadership and the original name was restored. Al-Quds Hospital, located in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood and managed by the Palestine Red Crescent Society, is the second largest hospital in Gaza.
As a result of fuel and electricity restrictions, hospitals currently experience power cuts lasting for 8–12 hours daily. There is currently a 60-70 percent shortage reported in the diesel required for power generators. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the proportion of patients given permits to exit Gaza for medical care decreased from 89.3% in January 2007 to 64.3% in December 2007, an unprecedented low.