Long before Hamas, Israel, and Netanyahu, Gaza was a theatre for major military operations, witnessing four major battles before the city’s final occupation during the 1967 war. Three took place during World War I, and the fourth was waged when Gaza was still under Egyptian control in 1955.
Very little has been written about what happened to the people of Gaza during these four battles, with most historians concentrating on the fate of those controlling them and how their fortunes affected regional politics and military dynamics.
Today marks the 107th anniversary of the Third Battle of Gaza, a battle between the British and Ottoman armies that ultimately led to its occupation. Time and time again, Gaza would prove difficult to govern, with former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin famously saying that he longed for the day when he would wake up and find that it had vanished below the surface of the earth—a dream that undoubtedly, still preoccupies his successor, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The First Battle of Gaza
The first contemporary battle of Gaza erupted on 26 March 1917, when the British-created Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) attacked the city, then part of the Ottoman Empire, with a pre-war population of 40,000. The two empires were at war, with the British military backing rebel Arab forces in the Arabian Desert, commanded by the emir of Mecca, Sharif Hussein.
Ottoman Baghdad had just fallen to the Allies, and before taking Jerusalem, they needed to take Gaza first. In February, they began shelling Ottoman and German positions in Ramla and Bier al-Sabe’, with the assistance of a French battalion that was shelling the port city of Jaffa.
Two battalions from the Ottoman Fourth Army defended Gaza, later joined by five more. The notorious Djemal Pasha commanded them, and a German officer named Kress von Kressensetin was in charge of the Gaza front. The British were apparently misinformed, believing that the resistance in Gaza would be only 2,000 men strong. They were ultimately defeated later in the afternoon of the first day of battle due to German support and large Ottoman reinforcements.
Over 500 British soldiers were killed on that day, and another 500 were reported missing, including five officers, while another 241 were taken prisoners. The Ottomans suffered a much higher death toll—a whopping 1,370 casualties, including 16 Germans, although Djemal Pasha would put his losses at 300 killed, 750 wounded, and 600 missing. General Archibald Murray, Commander of the British force, would later write: “All (our) troops behaved splendidly. We inflicted very heavy losses upon them.” The Ottomans dropped leaflets on the withdrawing British forces, saying: “You beat us at communiques, but we beat you in Gaza.”
The Second Battle of Gaza
Three weeks later, the British staged another attack on 17 April, hoping to reverse their fortunes. The Ottomans were ready and well-prepared, having maintained all their defences. Three weeks separated the two battles, during which the British staged major reconnaissance over Gaza, and the Ottomans had expanded their defences to approximately 20 km of Gaza, with 21,000 soldiers.
Three British infantry divisions attacked on 17 April, supported by 25 military aircraft, and lasted for three days, and when it became clear to the British that they simply could not win, they began to retreat. Casualties at the British front were reported at 6,444, against 402 killed by the Ottoman Army and 1,337 wounded. An additional 200 Ottoman soldiers were taken prisoners, but Ottoman morale was souring with an exaggerated feeling of invincibility, which would ultimately prove fatal in the third and last battle, which took place in November 1917.
The Third Battle of Gaza
The third battle began on 1 November 1917, eight months after the first. Archibald Murray had been replaced as commander of the British force by the celebrated General Edmund Allenby, the man who took Jerusalem in December and would soon take Damascus in October 1918. Gaza had become a fortress, with entrenchments, wire entanglements, trenches, and gently sloping banks on its southeastern edge.
Bombing intensified on 6 November, leading to the collapse of the Gaza—Bir al-Sabe’ line on 7 November. Allenby wrote: “We’ve had a successful day. The Turks fought well but have been badly defeated.” Fighting continued throughout the next day, and within 24 hours, all Ottoman positions had been captured in Gaza.
The Fourth Battle of Gaza
The fourth major battle unfolded nine years after the conclusion of World War II. The British Mandate in Palestine had terminated in mid-1948 and been replaced by the Israeli occupation, with Gaza left in the possession of Egypt, now standing at a population exceeding 200,000 due to the influx of Palestinians who were accommodated at eight refugee camps.
Egyptian authorities were toying with the idea of relocating 12,000 of them to plots of land in the northwestern desert of Sinai, and due to their constant insubordination, Israel had launched an attack against them on 28 August 1953, killing 50 at the al-Bureij Refugee Camp near Deir al-Balah, which since last October, has been the target of numerous Israeli attacks in the 2024 Gaza War.
Shortly after staging the Free Officer Revolution of 1952, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser had been informed of secret talks with Israel, carried out in France by Abdul Rahman Sadeq, press attaché at the Egyptian Embassy. Those talks had been initiated by King Farouk and re-authorised by Abdel Nasser, who promised to curb guerrilla attacks on Israel and use his country’s influence to tone down Arab criticism of the Jewish State in exchange for Israeli pledges to help secure British withdrawal from the Suez Canal. Abdel Nasser would control Palestinian activity from his side of the border but had little control over the Jordanian side.
On 25 February, they staged a major infiltration into the Israeli territory, killing one Israeli. Three days later, Prime Minister Moshe Sharett ordered a major attack on Gaza on 28 February, codenamed Operation Black Arrow. Israeli’s founding premier, David Ben Gurion, had just entered the Sharett cabinet on 21 February, and he authorised 27-year-old Ariel Sharon, then-commander of the Paratroop Brigade, to lead the Gaza operation.
In October 1953, Sharon had successfully led troops into the village of Qibya in the West Bank, killing 69 Palestinians, which undoubtedly made him well-suited for the new job in Gaza. His first target was a military camp near the Gaza Railway Station, where 17 Egyptian soldiers were killed in their sleep. Reinforcements were sent, but they were no match for the Israelis, raising the death toll to 38 Egyptians versus 8 Israelis.
Although condemned by the United Nations, the Gaza attack was marketed as the first major victory for Israel since 1948. It was also the first major defeat for Egypt, serving as a wake-up call for Abdel Nasser, who, realising just how weak his army was, famously remarked: “We need arms, even from the Devil himself.” That realisation made him turn to the Soviets, resulting in a chain of events that accumulated with the collective Arab defeat of 1967.
