Al-Zahra () is a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

municipality in the

Gaza Governorate The Gaza Governorate (), also alternatively known as Gaza City Governorate, is one of the 16 Governorates of Palestine, located in the north central Gaza Strip. Gaza is claimed by the State of Palestine, but the land is under the control of ...

, south of Gaza and north of the Wadi Gaza, in the central

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

. The University of Palestine and Ummah Open University are located there. In 2017, it had a population of 5,338. There were 837 housing units and 237 other buildings in the town.

Yasser Arafat Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...

established Al-Zahra in the 1990s as a residential area for

Palestine Authority The Palestinian Authority (PA), officially known as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is the Fatah-controlled government body that exercises partial civil control over the Palestinian enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a cons ...

staff and supporters. It remained a neighborhood with larger houses and more open space than others in Gaza City. In 1998, a Bronze Age archaeological site was discovered at Al-Zahra during work on a housing project. The site was subsequently named

Tell es-Sakan Tell es-Sakan () is a tell (a mound created by accumulation of remains) about south of Gaza City in the Gaza Strip. It was the site of two separate Early Bronze Age urban settlements: the first was a fortified administrative centre of the E ...

and investigated by archaeologists. In the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

, it was untouched by airstrikes until October 19, 2023, when more than twenty apartment blocks were bombed by the

Israel Defense Forces The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...

. During the building of the netzarim corridor the city was captured by the israel defence forces

References

Villages in the Gaza Strip Municipalities of Palestine {{Palestine-geo-stub