Gaza, Who Has Been Here? Why Egypt and Jordan Were Told They'd Open Their Doors

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

You do realize, President Trump, that this land of Gaza has been desirable Riviera land for ages by every group of people imaginable.  It finally belonged to the Philistines, who King David of the Bible needed to wipe out as they were so anti-peaceful.  Each country who came along had had grandiose ideas for the land.  You are just one of the many.  Read on.  

Tel Aviv is also a seaside resort, like the Riviera.  Are you planning to have Gaza as competition to Tel Aviv?                      

                        Tel Aviv

 September 5, 2019:  Tel Aviv has been changing rapidly. Featuring boutique hotels, trendy restaurants and cocktail bars, and a completely new vibe, the tayelet is finally getting hot.  It was fantastic when I was there from 1980-1985.  Seaside in Oregon was nothing compared to Tel Aviv's seashore.  Over the years the beachfront’s destiny had been in the hands of many different authorities, changing its nature with every new policy decision. In the 1920s, the beach potential was first discovered by Tel Avivians; a casino operated in the area, and coffee shops flourished, with public spaces gradually expanding.

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 Brits held a 30 year Mandate on Palestine which included Gaza since April 24, 1920 which was the end of World War I.   Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1920 creation of the British Mandate of Palestine, and in the context of Zionism and the mass migration of European Jews to Palestine, there had been tension and conflict between Arabs, Jews, and the British.  The historical novel,  The Settlers, is a history of this period in Palestine and is a must in taking one back as if in a time machine for understanding.  

 The population of the city swelled as a result of the Palestinian exodus during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. That war followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war.

 The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning.    The civil war began the day after the adoption of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine on 29 November 1947 – which planned to divide the territory into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and the Special International Regime encompassing the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.                           

The mandate  ended with Golda Meier and others declaring this Promised Homeland had a name;  ISRAEL.  At the end of a series of offensives that began April 1948, in which Zionist forces had conquered cities and territories in Mandatory Palestine in preparation for the establishment of a Jewish state, Zionist leaders announced the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948. The following morning, after the termination of the British Mandate, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and expeditionary forces from Iraq entered Palestine.

 The invading forces took control of the Arab areas and attacked Israeli forces and several Jewish settlements. The 10 months of fighting took place mostly on the territory of the British Mandate and in the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon, interrupted by several truce periods.                                                            

Gaza became a center of confrontation during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, being occupied by Israel for decades. I don't know about decades. 

 Mark Twain wrote about his trip to Palestine in about 1860 and it wasn't occupied by anyone other than camels with a few Bedouin riders.  He never did see any Jews.  The book,  The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress, was published in 1869 and is considered one of the best-selling travel books of all time.             

By the end of the war in 1948, the State of Israel controlled all of the area that the UN had proposed for a Jewish state, as well as almost 60% of the area proposed for an Arab state, including Jaffa, Lydda and Ramle area, Upper Galilee, some parts of the Negev, the east coast as far as Gaza City, and a wide strip along the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem road. Israel also took control of West Jerusalem, which was meant to be part of an international zone for Jerusalem and its environs.

The city was largely destroyed and depopulated following the Israel-Hamas war.

           Settlement in the region of Gaza dates back to 3300–3000 BCE at Tell as-Sakan – a site located south of the present-day Gaza City – which began as an Ancient Egyptian fortress built in Canaanite territory.  People have been there for the past 5, 325 years!  

Gaza was part of Canaan originally.   Canaanite cities began to trade agricultural goods with the Egyptians. However, when Egypt's economic interests shifted to the cedar trade with Lebanon, Gaza's role was reduced to that of a port for ships carrying goods and it declined economically. The site was virtually abandoned and remained so throughout the Early Bronze Age II.

In 2250 BCE, the area experienced a total collapse of civilization and all of the cities in the Gaza region were abandoned by the 23rd century BCE.  This was when Abraham's family was either still in Mesopotamia or thinking of moving to Ur as the Exodus didn't happen till possibly in 1445 BCE as one researcher thinks, or by Jewish researching having Joshua entering the land of Israel in the year 1272 BCE.  Egypt settled Gaza once again and Tell el-Ajjul rose for the third time in the 15th century BCE. The city finally ceased to exist in the 14th century, at the end of the Bronze Age.  

 Gaza was in Egyptian hands for the next 350 years.  Egyptian direct rule ended in the 12th century BCE, when Gaza was settled by the Philistines, a seafaring people with cultural links to the Aegean, following their defeat against Ramesses III. It then became a part of the pentapolis, a league of the Philistines' five most important city-states. 

 Jews lived here as Gaza is also mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the place where Samson was imprisoned and met his death.  According to biblical accounts, Gaza fell to Israelite rule during the reign of King David in the early 11th century BCE. When the biblically postulated United Monarchy split around 930 BCE, the territory of the Philistines, including Gaza, became part of the Kingdom of Judah. Some historians today believe that these stories about Israelite/Judean rule over Philistia are not historical, but rather mythical, but then many non-believers think all the bible is mythical.  The prophets Amos and Zephaniah are believed to have prophesied that Gaza would be deserted.                                                                        

                        David Fighting the Philistines, his worst enemy                      

 A large 6th-century synagogue with a mosaic tile floor depicting King David was discovered in Gaza. An inscription states that the floor was donated in 508–509 CE by two merchant brothers. https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-mosaic-floor-from-the-4th-c-ad-synagogue-in-gaza-depicting-king-david-30857688.html           

 The Jewish population left in 1917.  A few who returned departed during the 1929 Arab riots.  Gaza City became the main city in the Gaza Strip.  During the week of riots, from 23 to 29 August, 133 Jews were killed by Arabs, and 339 Jews were injured, most of whom were unarmed. There were 116 Arabs killed ...

When Canaan fell to the Assyrians under Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II around 730 BCE, Gaza came under Assyrian rule. In the 7th century, it again came under Egyptian control, but during the Persian period (6th–4th centuries BCE) it enjoyed a certain independence and flourished. In 601/600 BCE, Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II was defeated by the Egyptian army under pharaoh Necho II at Migdol near Gaza; however, it was captured by Nebuchadnezzar during his second unsuccessful campaign to invade Egypt in 568 BCE. In 529 BCE, Cambyses I unsuccessfully attacked Gaza. The first coins were minted on the Athens model around 420–410 BCE.

Alexander the Great besieged Gaza—the last city to resist his conquest on his path to Egypt—for five months, finally capturing it in 332 BCE.  Gaza was rebuilt after it was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 63 BCE, under the command of Pompey Magnus. Roman rule brought 600 years of peace and prosperity to the city—which became a busy port. Following Jerusalem's fall to the Romans who occupied her, then set the Temple and city on fire in 70 CE, captives were sold into slavery in Gaza. 

Emperor Hadrian,  favored Gaza, personally inaugurated wrestling, boxing and oratorical competitions in Gaza's new stadium. The city was adorned with many pagan temples, the main cult being that of Marnas. Other temples were dedicated to Zeus, Helios, Aphrodite, Apollo, Athena, and Tyche. With the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), Jewish captives were sold as slaves in Gaza. Gaza was a Roman Colony!!!

The arrival of the Muslim Arabs brought drastic changes to Gaza; its churches were transformed into mosques, including the Cathedral of John the Baptist (previously the Temple of Marnas), which became the Great Mosque of Gaza. Gaza's population adopted Islam as their religion relatively quickly in contrast with the city's countryside. Eventually, Arabic became the official language. The Christian population was reduced to an insignificant minority and the Samaritan residents deposited their property with their high priest and fled the city east upon the Muslim conquest.

In 796 the city was laid waste during a civil war by the Arab tribes of the area. Gaza apparently recovered by the 9th century according to Persian geographer Istakhri who wrote that merchants grew rich there "for this place was a great market for the people of the Hejaz." A Christian writer, writing in 867, described it as "rich in all things". Gaza's port, however, occasionally succumbed to neglect under Arab rule and an overall decline in commerce followed because of infighting among Palestine's rulers and Bedouin bandits who disrupted overland trade routes towards the city.  From 868 to 905 the Tulunids ruled Gaza, and around 909, the influence of the Fatimids from Egypt started to grow, leading to a slow decline of the city.

Skipping centuries to 1516, Gaza—by now a small town with an inactive port, ruined buildings and reduced trade—was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.The Ottoman army quickly and efficiently crushed a small-scale uprising, and the local population generally welcomed them as fellow Sunni   Muslims.                          

Set in Palestine from the turn of the century to the Balfour Declaration, this novel revolves around a large Russian immigrant family facing a new life in a barren land.

Gaza City 's population in 1949 was 30,000 being swollen by many refugees.  Gaza was captured in November 1956 by Israel forces who remained there until March 1957.  It again passed under Israel rule during the Six Day War in 1967.  A census taken later that year gave its population at 119,000.    

The 1949 Armistice Agreements, which ended the 1948 Arab–Israeli War by delineating the Green Line as the legal boundary between Israel and the Arab countries, left the Kingdom of Egypt in control of a small swath of territory that it had captured and occupied in the former British Mandate for Palestine, namely the Gaza Strip.

    Map of the Gaza Strip after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, which established the Green Line between Israel and the Arab countries.  Gaza City is the capital. 

Gaza was captured in November 1956 by Israel forces who remained until March 1957.  It again passed under Israeli rule during the Six Day War of 1967.  

The Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip was briefly subsumed by Israel during the 1956 Suez Crisis and ended entirely during the 1967 Six-Day War, after which the territory became occupied by Israel with the establishment of the Israeli Military Governorate.  The census showed 119,000.  

Something to know about the land:  Gaza experienced destructive earthquakes in 1903 and 1914. Gaza is 22 miles long and about 8 miles wide.  The area was under Egyptian rule until 1949.  Then the Sinai  Operation allowed Israel to capture it back in November 1956.  They returned the land to Egypt in March 1957 who also had the UN Emergency Force to help them.                                                                     

The United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), since its creation during the winter of 1956, has maintained a constant vigil along the Armistice Demarcation Line and the International Frontier. The Reece Squadron Unit has been responsible for patrolling the Northern Sector of the International Frontier.
Two members of the Royal Canadian Dragoons Reconnaissance Squadron on patrol along the Egypt/Israel frontier.

It was the UN Secretary U Thant who obeyed Nasser's demand to leave, which led to 1967's War which dumped Gaza into Israel's lap once more.  Now the population was 262,260 in Gaza of which 172,520 were refugees.    

Resource:

Book:  The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain

Book:  THE SETTLERS  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Gaza

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Gaza_Strip_by_the_United_Arab_

Republic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/tide-turns-tel-aviv-promenade

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2025/01/how-we-got-involved-with-gaza-133-year.html