GAZA, the most southernly city of the Philistine Pentapolis, separated from the sea by 3 mi. of sand dunes… centre where ancient trade routes met… frankincense from Arabia on its way to the Mediterranean world. It is on the railway from Egypt to Palestine and was capital of of the southern province of Palestine. The town is well supplied with water. Before World War I it was a prosperous town with good bazaars, a considerable manufacture of black pottery, and a growing export trade in barley. It was more than half destroyed by the war, and the [NON-JEWISH] population, although somewhat replenished immediately after the war, dwindled away northward in search of sustenance… The only industry is provided by about 100 primitive looms on which is made coarse cloth for [MUSLIM] Bedouin cloaks. The population (1940) was 21, 300.
Battles of Gaza, 1917. – Gaza forms the natural “gate” into Palestine from Egypt by the coast route. Thus when in 1917 the British government decided to change their operations for the defense of the Suez canal into an offensive against the Turkish forces in [MUSLIM] Palestine, Gaza formed the obvious initial objective . But the first and second direct attacks on March 26 and April 17-19, failed, and it was not until the autumn that Gaza fell as a result of Allenby’s indirect move, first against Beersheba and then against the weak centre of the Turkish front between Beersheba and Gaza. For a description of these operations, which culminated in the capture of Jerusalem, see PALESTINE, OPERATIONS IN. – Encyc. Brittannica, 1956, GAZA.
