Gaza (City)
GAZA (CITY)
Largest city of the Gaza Strip. In the 1948 War it came under the control of Egypt. Its prewar population of 65,000 absorbed many of the 200,000 to 250,000 refugees who came into the Gaza Strip; in 2004 the city's population was more than 400,000, an unknown number of whom are refugees. (Refugees comprise over 78 percent of the 1.3 million population of the Gaza Strip as a whole.) Since the 1967 War, which caused 100,000 Palestinian refugees to leave the Gaza Strip, mostly for Jordan, it has been under the control of Israel, either through direct military occupation or through control of settlement and military zones outside the "autonomous" areas under the Palestinian Authority (set up in 1994). The city and its surrounding refugee camps, like the Gaza Strip as a whole, are centers for political unrest and anti-Israel activity, particularly since the first Intifada began in 1987. HAMAS is headquartered there. Gaza, which has a port, is the commercial center of the region, but the economy has been crippled by Israeli border closures and other measures, and it is estimated that more than half the working-age population is unemployed.
SEE ALSO Arab-Israeli War (1948);Gaza Strip;HAMAS;Intifada (1987–1983);Palestinian Authority.
