The Indigenous Name of the City of "Gaza"

16 Aug 2026 by Sufian M′Barki

As a researcher, one of the most important things to remember is that I will never be able to know everything. My knowledge of Israeli history is ever-evolving, and this is true for every expert in every field.

The evolution is usually not radical - either a slight refinement of my pre-existing knowledge, or new knowledge that isn't central to Hasbara activism.

However, I am most certainly not immune to the occasional groundbreaking discovery (on a personal level); but I do not fear those because they only serve to supplement the core that already exists anyway.

"Gaza" Is Not the Indigenous Name of the City

Despite social media being overwhelmed with all sorts of unhinged stories about "Gaza," it turns out that this is not the name Ancient Israelites used for the city. I found this surprising - after all, even all modern Israelis I have spoken to refer to the city as Gaza, likely due to force of habit.

The truth is that the Hebrew name for this city is Azzah. More specifically, it's the Biblical term. And the reason the other name exists is Philistines.

Philistines were an Ancient Greek tribe, and their colonial settlement was situated around the city of Azzah in the form of a pentapolis. As it has been previously established, they were far from a benign, peaceful tribe. In fact, Philistia was Ancient Israel and Judah's adversary, and they waged aggressive conflict against Jews on numerous occasions.

Conflict may have been the survival norm at the time, but one cannot gloss over the fact Philistia was the one who continuously initiated them. It stands in even starker contrast to Ancient Israel and Ancient Arabia's decent relationship, considering that before Arabia's Islamization, the two nations engaged in trade and rarely had any serious conflicts.

Before you ask, Ancient Israel as an established nation is older than Ancient Arabia, and Arabia had nothing to do with the Jewish homeland. To use a simple comparison, you may look at Modern Israel and Saudi Arabia. The modern-day antizionist movement is a genocidal terror movement seeking to destroy Israel.

Once David defeated Goliath in battle, the Israelites managed to retrieve the small piece of land previously occupied by Philistines, defeating their ancient adversary.

Following Israel's liberation from colonial and genocidal oppression in 1948, the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt led to the Jewish state retrieving the "Gaza" Strip and establishing control over it for a very similar reason - one, to stop foreign invaders from trying to destroy Jews, and two, to liberate the Jewish homeland. Even so, the Philistines were not suicide bombers and martyrs who killed innocent people in the name of their abstract Islamic god, but that only makes the events in the 20th century all-the-more crucial.

Let's make something crystal clear. Israel's disengagement from Gaza in 2005 was not a random gesture of goodwill, but a panicked reaction to the Second Intifada. In a desperate attempt to make Muslims stop terrorizing Israel, the Jewish state gave away a portion of its homeland, removing all Jewish-Israeli families living there.

Needless to say, the terrorism did not stop.

When a mugger demands that you give them your wallet and belongings at gunpoint, compliance is hardly an act of charity from your end. Doing so is a survival instinct. And yet, despite this, many muggers still choose to shoot their victims to death after stealing their possessions. This analogy brilliantly summarizes the conflict perpetuated by Islamists against Israel.

In any case, if the city has been Israeli three times in history and for similar reasons, this raises the question of why popular media still refers to it by its Greek name instead of the Hebrew one, and which civilization resided there first.

The City of Azzah

The erasure of Jewish history is a disturbing and revolting phenomenon. To understand Azzah vs. Gaza, we need to explore the etymological history of the name itself, as well as analyze the Israelite and Greek perspective. This is Applied Epistemology in practice, which I will talk about in my future Critical Thinking Fundamentals lectures.

The Chronological Angle

Legitimizing the name "Gaza" as indigenous requires ignoring the most critical historical fact in the equation - the Philistines were absolutely not the first inhabitants. They were literal invaders.

The city of Azzah is over 5000 years old, and it belonged to the Ancient Canaanites (including Israelites). It began in the Early Bronze Age as an indigenous Canaanite cultural and agricultural hub with major archaeological sites like Tell es-Sakan. The term "Philistine" (and thus the Roman term "Palestine") originate from the Hebrew "פלשת" - or, the Semitic root "פ-ל-ש," which means invader.

Around 1500 BCE, before the Philistines ever arrived, the city fell under ancient Egyptian control and served as an administrative capital. In ancient Egyptian records and the Amarna letters, it is referred to by its Semitic names: Qazati, Gazzat, and Azzati.

The Philistines only entered the picture during the Bronze Age Collapse. After an invasion from the sea, they conquered the Canaanite coastal lines, and established the pentapolis mentioned earlier.

Given that Canaanites are the first people to be associated with the city, it is important to preserve its indigenous name and refer to it as Azzah. Even though Modern Hebrew has lost the guttural quality of the letter Ayin (ע), it is still the same letter that was used for the name in Hebrew (עַזָה). A quick Google Translate request reveals this, no less.

The Phonetic Angle

The elephant in the room - why was the name change even introduced?

The reason Ancient Greeks renamed the city to Gaza is rather mundane. Because Ancient Greek did not have a letter capturing the exact guttural phonetic profile of the Biblical Hebrew letter Ayin, they simply decided to use Gamma (Γ) as the substitute.

That's all there is to it, but it does not change the fact "Γάζα" is a foreign colonial term, not the indigenous one.

Moving Forward

There you have it. The city of Azzah was an Ancient Canaanite (Israelite) city, and "Gaza" is nothing more than a Greek adaptation born out of necessity and convenience.

After reclaiming a big portion of its homeland from foreign invaders, perhaps it is time for all of Israel and its allies - Jews, Zionists, Israelis - to adopt the original name. Judea-Samaria for West Bank, and Azzah for Gaza.

Sufian M'Barki

serious politics analysis history journalism israel antisemitism westerncult