History of Gaza - Ancient Period

Ancient Period

A city which would become present-day Gaza began to develop on the site of Tell al-Ajjul. This city served as Egypt’s administrative capital in Canaan, and was the residence of the Egyptian governor of the region. A caravan point of strategic importance from the earliest times, it was constantly involved in the wars between Egypt and Syria and the Mesopotamian powers, and appeared frequently in Egyptian and Assyrian records. Under Tuthmosis III, it is mentioned on the Syrian-Egyptian caravan route and in the Amarna letters as "Azzati". Gaza was in Egyptian hands for 350 years, until it was conquered by the Philistines, a seafaring people with cultural links to the Aegean, in the 12th-century BCE. It then became a part of the pentapolis; a league of the Philistines' five most important city-states. The Hebrew Bible mentions the Avvites occupying an area that extended as far as Gaza, and that these people were dispossessed by the Caphtorites from the island of Caphtor (modern Crete). Some scholars speculate that the Philistines were descendants of the Caphtorites.

In the Hebrew Bible, Gaza is also mentioned as the place where Samson was imprisoned and met his death. The prophets Amos and Zephaniah prophesied that Gaza would be deserted. According to biblical accounts, Gaza came under Israelite rule from the reign of King David in the early 11th-century BCE. When the United Monarchy split in about 930 BCE, Gaza became a part of the northern Kingdom of Israel. When the Kingdom of Israel 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 529 BCE, Cambyses I unsuccessfully attacked Gaza and later, around 520 BCE, the Greeks established a trading post in Gaza. The first coins were minted on the Athens model around 380 BCE.

Alexander the Great besieged Gaza—the last city to resist his conquest on his path to Egypt—for five months, finally capturing it 332 BCE. Led by a eunuch named Batis and defended by Arab mercenaries, Gaza withstood the siege for two months, until it was overcome by storm. The defenders, mostly local elements, fought to the death and the women and children were taken as captives. The city was resettled by neighboring Bedouins, who were sympathetic to Alexander's rule. He then organized the city into a polis or "city-state" and Greek culture took root in Gaza which gained a reputation as a flourishing center of Hellenic learning and philosophy. Belonging at first to the Ptolemaic kingdom, it passed after 200 BCE to the Seleucids.

In the 1st-century BCE and the first half of that century, it was the Mediterranean port of the Nabateans, whose caravans arrived there from Petra or from Elath on the Red Sea. In 96 BCE, the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus besieged the city for a year. The inhabitants, who had hoped for help from the Nabatean king Aretas II, were killed and their city destroyed by Jannaeus when Aretas did not come to their aid.