Gaza (Ghazza): History of Palestine's Ancient Port City

When the armies of the pharaoh Thutmose III marched out of Egypt in the fifteenth century BCE, the first city their records name on the road into Canaan is Gaza. Gaza, Palestine (غزة, Ghazza) has stood on the same stretch of Mediterranean coast for thousands of years: the last port of Palestine before the desert, the place where the caravans of Arabia finally met the sea. Its crafts, its markets, and the people who carried both into exile belong to the heritage that FALASTIN's Palestinian heritage collection exists to keep in view.

TL;DR

Gaza is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Settlement in the Gaza area reaches back roughly 5,000 years to the Early Bronze Age site of Tell es-Sakan, and the city itself appears in Egyptian records from the fifteenth century BCE. It was a Philistine royal city, the Mediterranean terminus of the incense route from Arabia, seat of a famous Byzantine school of rhetoric, and home to the Great Omari Mosque and the church of Saint Porphyrius. In 1948 about 200,000 Palestinian refugees arrived in the Gaza Strip, joining roughly 80,000 residents, and Gaza became the most concentrated home of Nakba memory anywhere in Palestine.

Where Is Gaza and Why Did It Matter?

Gaza sits at the southwestern corner of Palestine, on the Mediterranean coast where the fertile plain narrows toward the Sinai desert. Every land route between Egypt and the Levant passed through it. The ancient coastal highway that Egyptian scribes called the Way of Horus ended its desert crossing at Gaza, which made the city a garrison, a customs house, and a market from the moment armies and merchants began keeping records.

That geography wrote the city's character. Gaza faced the sea like the port city of Jaffa further north, but it also faced the desert, and its wealth came from standing between the two: grain and wine going out, incense and spices coming in, and a permanent city living on the exchange.

One of the Oldest Cities in the World

Settlement in the Gaza area goes back to the Early Bronze Age. At Tell es-Sakan, just south of the modern city, archaeologists uncovered a fortified settlement founded around 3300 BCE, built as an Egyptian outpost on the route north. The city of Gaza itself enters written history in the campaign annals of Thutmose III in the fifteenth century BCE, and again a century later in the Amarna letters, the diplomatic correspondence of Egypt's New Kingdom.

In the twelfth century BCE Gaza became one of the five royal cities of the Philistines, alongside Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. In 332 BCE it was the only city on the coast to resist Alexander the Great, holding out under its commander Batis through a siege of about two months. Rome and Byzantium knew it as a prosperous provincial city; by the fifth and sixth centuries CE its school of rhetoric, led by teachers like Procopius of Gaza, was known across the eastern Mediterranean.

The Port at the End of the Incense Route

For centuries Gaza was where the desert trade met the sea. The incense route carried frankincense and myrrh from southern Arabia north through Petra, and its Mediterranean terminus was Gaza, where Nabataean caravans unloaded for shipment to Greece and Rome. The city's harbor town of Anthedon, on the coast just northwest of Gaza, handled the sea trade and has been excavated as one of Palestine's oldest known seaports.

The trade left its mark on language as well as stone. One long-standing account traces the English word gauze, through the French gaze, to Gaza and its weaving trade. The etymology is not certain, but the association says something true: Gaza's textiles traveled far enough, for long enough, that a fabric could plausibly carry the city's name across the Mediterranean.

Landmarks of the Old City

Gaza's old city, with its historic quarters of al-Daraj, al-Zaytun, and al-Tuffah, held some of the oldest continuously used buildings in Palestine.

• The Great Omari Mosque: the largest and oldest mosque in Gaza, standing on a site that has carried a Philistine temple, a fifth-century Byzantine church, and a Crusader cathedral. It became a mosque after the seventh-century Muslim conquest, and its slender Mamluk minaret was the landmark of the city's skyline for centuries.
• The Church of Saint Porphyrius: named for the bishop of Gaza who died in the city in 420 CE, and counted among the oldest active church communities in the world. The present building dates largely to the Crusader period of the 1150s.
• Qasr al-Basha: a Mamluk-era palace in al-Daraj that later served Ottoman governors, and is said to have lodged Napoleon Bonaparte during his 1799 campaign.
• Hammam al-Samra: the last of Gaza's historic bathhouses, a Mamluk-era hammam that stayed in use into the twenty-first century.
• The Qissariya market: the covered gold market beside the Great Omari Mosque, a vaulted Mamluk arcade where Gazan families bought wedding gold for generations.

It has to be said plainly: much of this built heritage now lies in ruin. The Great Omari Mosque was largely destroyed in an airstrike in December 2023, and the Church of Saint Porphyrius was struck in October 2023 while displaced families sheltered inside its compound. Buildings that survived earthquakes, Crusaders, and the shelling of the First World War were brought down within weeks. The record of what they were, and what they held, is now part of what has to be kept deliberately.

Black Pottery and the Majdalawi Loom

Gaza's craft signature is its pottery. Gaza ware is a distinctive dark-gray, almost black ceramic, made from local clay and fired in kilns starved of oxygen so the smoke blackens the clay all the way through. Water jars, cooking pots, and storage vessels in that unmistakable dark finish were traded across southern Palestine for centuries.

The city also became the keeper of a craft born elsewhere. When the weaving town of al-Majdal was emptied in 1948, its weavers carried their looms and their patterns into Gaza's refugee camps, where the majdalawi weaving tradition survived on treadle looms rebuilt in exile. A fabric named for one town stayed alive because another town took it in.

What Happened to Gaza in 1948?

On the eve of 1948, Gaza was a city of roughly 35,000 people, the market town of a district of orchards, grain fields, and coastal villages. During the Nakba, as villages across southern Palestine were depopulated, families fled toward the one strip of coast that remained outside the new state. About 200,000 refugees arrived in what became the Gaza Strip, joining a resident population of around 80,000. The refugees came from Jaffa's hinterland, from the villages of the south, and from the districts around Beersheba, the gateway of the Negev.

The Strip passed under Egyptian administration until 1967, and UNRWA established eight refugee camps there, including al-Shati on the beach beside Gaza City and Jabalia to the north. Within two years, refugees outnumbered residents more than two to one. No other place in Palestine holds so concentrated a share of the Nakba's descendants, which is why Gaza's family names still map onto the emptied villages of the south.

Frequently Asked Questions

How old is Gaza?

Settlement in the Gaza area goes back about 5,000 years to the Early Bronze Age site of Tell es-Sakan, and the city of Gaza appears in Egyptian written records from the fifteenth century BCE. It is regularly counted among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

What was Gaza known for historically?

Gaza was the Mediterranean end of the incense route from Arabia, a Philistine royal city, a Byzantine center of rhetoric, and a market city famous for its dark Gaza-ware pottery and its weaving trade. Its Great Omari Mosque and the Church of Saint Porphyrius were among the oldest religious buildings in continuous use in Palestine.

What happened to Gaza in 1948?

During the Nakba, about 200,000 Palestinian refugees from southern and central Palestine fled into the Gaza Strip, joining roughly 80,000 residents. UNRWA established eight refugee camps there, and Gaza became the densest concentration of 1948 refugees and their descendants anywhere in Palestine.

Where does the word gauze come from?

One long-standing account traces the English word gauze, through the French gaze, to the city of Gaza and its historic weaving trade. The etymology is debated, but it reflects how widely Gaza's textiles traveled in the medieval Mediterranean.

A Living Testament to Continuity

Gaza is not just a headline; it is one of the oldest addresses in human history. A city that received pharaohs' armies, Alexander's siege towers, Nabataean caravans, and Byzantine scholars also received, in a single year, two hundred thousand of its own people with nowhere else to go, and made room. Its mosque and its church stood side by side for eight centuries. Its potters turned local clay black, and its adopted weavers kept a dead town's fabric alive. The buildings can be brought down. The record of five thousand years, and the people who carry it, are harder to erase.

Written for FALASTIN by Jad Sahyoun, with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed for accuracy against published historical and archaeological scholarship on Gaza. Further reading: Gaza City and the Great Mosque of Gaza.

At FALASTIN, we aim to keep that heritage alive through our collection of Palestinian clothing.

100% of profits from FALASTIN are donated to the United Palestinian Appeal.