GAZA (Hebrew Azzah, Arabic Ghazzah). - A Canaanite city (Gen. 10:19; Deut. 2:23) in the southwestern corner of Palestine, 4 km from the sea, on the only route leading from Egypt into Syria. An important center of trade in wine, grain, and aromatics, and from the most remote antiquity an object of contention on the part of all the commanders who vied with one another for possession of Asia or of Egypt.
Mentioned in the execration texts (Ächtungstexte) of 1900 B.C., in the letters of Ta'anach (15th century) and of el-Amarna, it was the metropolis of the Philistine pentapolis and the scene of Samson's exploits, of his triumph and of his death beneath the temple of the god Dagon (Judg. 16). Solomon (I Kings 4:24) and later King Hezekiah (II Kings 18:5) sought to consolidate Israelite dominion there; but G. was occupied in 734 by Tiglath-Pileser III and remained tributary to the Assyrian kings. Occupied in 579 by Cambyses and in 322 by Alexander the Great, it was besieged in 145 by Jonathan (I Macc. 11:61) and destroyed in 96 by Alexander Jannaeus (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Jud., I, 4, 3). It was rebuilt by Gabinius and under Roman protection became a center of Hellenistic culture.
The inhabitants showed themselves ill-disposed toward Christianity and were converted only in the 5th century, by virtue of the edict of the emperor Arcadius (401) which prohibited pagan worship. On the ruins of the temple Marnion, through the zeal of the bishop Porphyry and of the empress Eudoxia, the great church known as the Eudoxian was built. Until the middle of the 6th century it distinguished itself, under the government of Christian humanists, in letters and in monuments. Occupied in 634 by the Muslims, it was held by them in great esteem for the tomb of Hâlim, grandfather of Muhammad, and because it was the birthplace of aš-Šafi'i, founder of the Sunni school. In the time of the Crusaders it was entrusted to the Templars, but in 1187 it returned to the power of the Muslims.
Various archaeological soundings, carried out in the northern part of the hill on which the present city rests, have revealed traces of occupation from the end of the second phase of the Bronze Age down to the Hellenistic period.