University College of Applied Sciences

The Al-Quds Hospital is a hospital located in the Tel al-Hawa area of Gaza City, in the Palestinian territories. It is the second largest hospital in Gaza.

Tel al-Hawa (Arabic: تل الهوا, "Hill of the Wind") is a neighborhood in the southern part of the Palestinian city of Gaza. Founded by the Palestinian National Authority in the late 1990s, Tel al-Hawa is one of the more affluent areas of the city. It contains the Islamic University in Gaza and the Interior Ministry of the Palestinian National Authority.Tel al-Hawa was formerly the headquarters of the Preventive Security Service, until Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 and turned it into a police station. After capturing the neighborhood, Hamas militiamen had it renamed to "Tel al-Islam". The Doghmush family held journalist Alan Johnston in Tel al-Hawa until Hamas secured his release. The neighborhood was severely damaged in the Gaza War, codenamed "Operation Cast Lead" by Israel. It was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war. Dozens of Hamas fighters were killed or wounded, and a dozen IDF soldiers were also killed and wounded. At least 12 civilians were killed.

Hind Rajab was a six-year-old Palestinian girl from the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City who was killed by the Israeli military, after being the sole survivor of Israeli tank fire on the vehicle she fled in with six relatives.An Israeli attack on the ambulance sent to rescue her killed two Palestine Red Crescent Society members, Yusuf Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, despite the fact that Israel was notified of its dispatch, according to the aid group.Her story gained significant media coverage in February 2024, after her emergency 3-hour phone call with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society was released, in which she told the dispatcher, "I'm so scared, please come. Come take me. Please, will you come?"

The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the West Bank) that make up the State of Palestine in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Gaza is bordered by Egypt on the southwest, Israel on the east and north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Its capital and largest city is Gaza City. The territorial boundaries were established by the Green Line of the 1949 Armistice Agreements at the conclusion of the 1948 Palestine war, at which time Gaza was controlled by the Kingdom of Egypt. During that period, the All-Palestine Protectorate, also known as All-Palestine, was established with limited recognition, and it became a refuge for Palestinians who fled or were expelled by Zionist forces in the Nakba. In the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, Israel captured and occupied the Gaza Strip among other territories, initiating a decades-long military occupation of the Palestinian territories. The mid-1990s Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a limited governing authority, initially led by the secular party Fatah until its electoral defeat in 2006 to the Sunni Islamist Hamas. Hamas would then take over the governance of Gaza in the Battle of Gaza the next year, subsequently warring with Israel. The restrictions on movement and goods in Gaza imposed by Israel date back to the early 1990s. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew its military forces from Gaza, dismantled its settlements, and implemented a temporary blockade of Gaza. The blockade became indefinite after the 2007 Hamas takeover. Egypt also began its blockade of Gaza in 2007. Despite the Israeli disengagement, Gaza was still considered occupied by Israel under international law, being described as an "open-air prison". Israel's actions in Gaza since the start of the war that began in 2023 have resulted in large-scale loss of life, mass population displacement, a humanitarian crisis, and an ongoing famine. These actions have been described by scholars, international law experts, and human-rights organizations as constituting a genocide against the Palestinian people. A provisional ceasefire began in mid-January 2025, lasting two months. In August, Israel began an offensive on Gaza City. By 9 October 2025, Israel and Hamas agreed to the first part of a United States-led peace plan. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803, adopted on 17 November 2025, contains provisions for the transitional governance of the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip is 41 kilometres (25 miles) long, from 6 to 12 km (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide, and has a total area of 365 km2 (141 sq mi). As of 2010, it has a population of just over 2 million, mostly of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. It is one of the most densely populated territories in the world, with a population density similar to that of cities like Tel Aviv or London. Before the Gaza war, its capital Gaza City was roughly the 90th-most densely populated city in the world, and had about a third of the population density of cities like Malé or Giza. The Gaza Strip has a high proportion of youth, with 43.5% being children 14 or younger and 50% under age of 18. Sunni Islam is almost ubiquitous, with a Palestinian Christian minority. Gaza has an annual population growth rate of 1.99% (2023 est.), the 39th-highest in the world. Gaza's unemployment rate is among the highest in the world, with an overall unemployment rate of 46% and a youth unemployment rate of 70%. Despite this, the area's 97% literacy rate is higher than that of nearby Egypt, while youth literacy is 88%. Gaza has throughout the years been seen as a source of Palestinian nationalism and resistance.

Al-Zaytun (also spelled Zeitoun or Harat az-Zaytoun; Arabic: الزيتون; Arabic translation: "the Quarter of Olive trees") is the southwestern and largest quarter of Gaza's Old City. Prior to the demolition of the Old City's walls, it was one of the three walled quarters of Gaza's Old City, the other two being al-Tuffah in the northeast and al-Daraj in the northwest. Omar Mukhtar Street, Gaza City's main thoroughfare, separates al-Zaytun from al-Daraj.

The Islamic University of Gaza (Arabic: الجامعة الإسلامية بغزة), also known as IUG and IU Gaza, is an independent Palestinian university established in 1978 in Gaza City. It was the first higher education institution to be established in the Gaza Strip. The university has eleven faculties capable of awarding BA, BSc, MA, MSc, MD, PhD, diplomas and higher diplomas, in addition to twenty research centers and institutes and the affiliated Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital.The Islamic University of Gaza is a member of twelve regional and international associations and networks of higher education, including the International Association of Universities (IAU), Mediterranean Universities Union (UNIMED), Association of Arab Universities (AAU), Federation of the Universities of the Islamic World (FUIW), Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean Academic Network (BSEMAN), and the Global University Network for Innovation-GUNi.Large parts of the Islamic University of Gaza were damaged by air strikes during the 2008–2009 Gaza war, the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, and the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. Professor Sufyan Tayeh, the University's president and prominent scientist, was killed along with his family in an Israeli air strike on Jabalia refugee camp on the 2nd of December 2023.

Al-Aqsa University (Arabic: جامعة الأقصى) is a Palestinian university established in 1955 in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. Established in 1955 as the first higher education institution in the Gaza Strip, Al-Aqsa University is the oldest governmental higher education institution. It caters for some 26,000 students and has some 1400 employees, 300 of whom are lecturers and professors.

Al-Azhar University – Gaza (Arabic: جامعة الأزهر بغزة), often abbreviated AUG, is a Palestinian, public, non-profit, and independent higher education institution. During the first intifada, Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat issued a decree in September 1991 to establish a Palestinian national university. AUG opened on 18 October 1991 in a two-story building with 725 students enrolled in two faculties; the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Sharia and Law (now the Faculty of Law). In 2023, the university's facilities were destroyed by Israeli bombardment of Gaza during the 2023 Israel–Hamas War.

In March 2024, during the Israel–Hamas war, civilians seeking humanitarian aid were attacked at the Kuwait Roundabout near Gaza City. According to the Gaza’s health ministry, 20 Gazans were killed and 155 were wounded. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded to the accusations saying they did not open in fire at the convoy, claiming that armed militants fired against the Gazan civilians while waiting for the aid convoy to arrive.

The Zeitoun killings refer to the Israeli military incursion, led by the Givati Brigade unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), into the Zeitoun district of Gaza as part of the three-week 2008-09 Gaza War. In the Arab world, it is referred to as the Zeitoun District Massacre (Arabic: مجزرة حي الزيتون). A total of 48 residents of Zeitoun were killed, most of them women, children, and the elderly; 27 homes, a mosque and a number of farms were destroyed by Israeli forces.The New York Times reported that during the three-week conflict "few neighborhoods suffered more than Zeitoun." A report released by United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs stated that the attack on the Samouni family, who were among the Zeitoun victims, was one of the "gravest incidents" in the conflict. According to Haaretz, the IDF delayed rescue services from reaching some of the casualties for three days of the incident.Zeitoun residents believed that because the area is a natural choke point where the Gaza strip narrows to just four miles wide, Israeli troops turned their neighborhoods into a military base from which to launch their operations. The IDF has refused to discuss individual charges in detail, but an army spokesman speaking on the condition of anonymity with The Los Angeles Times said, "As a matter of policy, we do not target civilians." He added, "These situations are very complex and our soldiers do the best they can."Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an Israeli think tank and advocacy organisation, said that printed flyers from Palestinian Islamic Jihad and its associated websites named five members of the Samouni extended family as being affiliated with the group in some role. Halevi also states that militants from that organisation were operating in the area around the time Israeli tanks began shelling the group of homes belonging to the Samouni extended family.According to the New York Times, members of the Samouni family "did not deny that Hamas militants operated in the area. A family member said there was no active Hamas resistance in the immediate vicinity, although militants were firing rockets at Israel a little more than a mile away." Newsweek reported that the survivors of Zeitoun all insisted that they were simply farmers and that their area had never been used to fire rockets.

The Gaza Zoo (Arabic: حديقة حيوان غزة) was a leisure complex, series of public gardens, children's amusement park and zoo in Gaza Strip, Palestine created by the government of Gaza in the spring of 2010 on government property that was formerly a garbage dump. It closed in 2016. During the ongoing Gaza war, over 90% of animals in the zoo have died. There also is or was a small private zoo, known as Marah Land Zoo located off Salahadin Street (also spelt "Salah Al Deen") in the Gaza City district of Zeitoun. The zoo's animals, like the local people, have suffered as a result of the difficulties in Gaza and the zoo has featured often in reports by the international media. The zoo was badly damaged during the 2008-2009 Gaza War. The zoo's stock, in addition to the two lions has included several eagles, some doves, some foxes, Egyptian mongoose, some cats, dogs, ponies, wolves, geese, tortoises, lizards, cattle, pigs, zebras, boars, goats, ducks, red-eared sliders, turtles, deer, monkeys, chickens, pheasants, peacocks and a camel.

Zeitoun (Arabic: الزيتون, lit. 'olives') is a district of Gaza, located in the southern part of the city.