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Gaza, (Arabic Ghazze), city and port
near the Mediterranean Sea, about 32 km north of the Egyptian border. This
ancient city has given its name to the Gaza Strip , a territory that was
occupied by Israeli forces from 1967 until 1994. The Gaza Strip covers about 378
sq km (about 146 sq mi) and extends northeast from the Sinai Peninsula along the
Mediterranean for about 40 km (about 25 mi).
Gaza was an important city in the 15th century BC , when the Egyptian king
Thutmose III made it a base for his army in a war with Syria . In biblical times
Gaza was one of the five royal cities of the ancient Philistines .
In the 8th century BC it was conquered by the Assyrians; from the 3rd to the 1st
century BC , Egyptian , Syrian , and Hebrew armies fought for its possession .
During Roman occupation it was called Minoa .
In the 7th century AD it became a sacred Muslim city, but the Crusaders found it
almost deserted in the 12th century . Gaza fell to the French general Napoleon
Bonaparte during his Egyptian campaign .
In 1917 , during World War I, the city was taken from Turkey by British forces
under General Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby.
By the terms of the United Nations (UN) plan of 1947 providing for the partition
of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, Gaza was to have been
included in the Arab area. In 1948 , during the war between Jewish the Arabs ,
Egyptian forces retained Gaza and the surrounding area , which came to be called
the Gaza Strip. This territory came under the control of Egypt by the terms of
the Arab Israeli armistice agreement of 1949 . In the course of the war some
200,000 Palestinian refugees from the Palestinian occupied land by Israel
settled in the strip, doubling the population. Although the city of Gaza has
bazaars and markets and some light industry, and the Gaza Strip is an
established citrus producing area , the economy cannot support the large
population , which has been aided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.
In the spring of 1956 several military clashes between Egypt and Israel took
place in the Gaza Strip. Israel accused Egypt of using the area as a base for
commando raids into Israeli territory . In October 1956, shortly before the
invasion of the Suez Canal Zone of Egypt by French and British forces, Israeli
troops seized the Gaza Strip and advanced into the Sinai Peninsula. The
following March a UN emergency force replaced the Israeli troops, and Egypt
regained control of the civil administration of the strip.
Israeli forces seized the area again during the Arab Israeli War of June 67.
The 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel called for eventual self rule for
the Palestinians in the strip.
Beginning in December 1987, the area was site of al-Intifada, demonstrations by
Palestinians demanding self rule.
In September 1993, after secret negotiations, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of
Israel and Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization
signed a peace accord calling for withdrawal of the Israeli military from the
Gaza Strip and other areas , and for Palestinian administration of the local
government.
In May 1994 Israeli troops withdrew from the Palestinian towns and refugee camps
of the Gaza Strip, and the area came under Palestinian authority.
