168-616: The Gaza Strip ( / ˈ ɡ ɑː z ə / ; Arabic : قِطَاعُ غَزَّةَ Qiṭāʿ Ġazzah [qɪˈtˤɑːʕ ˈɣaz.za] ), 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 . Inhabited by mostly Palestinian refugees and their descendants , Gaza
336-620: A Christian population. The totals by denomination for all of Mandatory Palestine were: Greek Orthodox 33,369, Syriac Orthodox (Jacobite) 813, Latin Catholic 14,245, Greek Catholic (Melkite) 11,191, Syriac Catholic 323, Armenian Catholic 271, Maronite 2,382, Armenian Orthodox (Gregorian) 2,939, Coptic Church 297, Abyssinian Church 85, Church of England 4,553, Presbyterian Church 361, Protestants 826, Lutheran Church 437, Templars Community 724, others 208. The census also listed 10,707 Palestinian Christians living abroad, making up
504-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
672-593: A conflation of the Prophet Elijah and the mythical sprite Khidr". Added to this, many Muslims viewed local Christian churches as saints' shrines. Thus, for instance, a "Muslim women having difficulties conceiving, for instance, might travel to Bethlehem to pray for a child before the Virgin Mary". It was even not uncommon for a Muslim to have his child baptized in a Christian church, in the name of Khaḍr . In 2009, there were an estimated 50,000 Christians in
840-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
1008-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
1176-609: A few days, new fighting broke out. On 1 February, Hamas killed 6 people in an ambush on a Gaza convoy which delivered equipment for Abbas' Palestinian Presidential Guard . Fatah fighters stormed a Hamas-affiliated university in the Gaza Strip. Officers from Abbas' presidential guard battled Hamas gunmen guarding the Hamas-led Interior Ministry. In May 2007, new fighting broke out between the factions. Interior Minister Hani Qawasmi , who had been considered
1344-713: A legal challenge by his predecessor Irenaios. Archbishop Theodosios (Hanna) of Sebastia the highest ranking Palestinian clergyman in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is the leader of the Latin Catholics in Jerusalem , Palestine , Jordan , Israel and Cyprus . The office has been held by Pierbattista Pizzaballa since his appointment by Pope Francis on 6 November 2020. George Bacouni , of
1512-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
1680-621: A major utility for the latter by supplying the country with a large unskilled and semi-skilled workforce. Gaza's agricultural sector was adversely affected as one-third of the Strip was appropriated by Israel, competition for scarce water resources stiffened, and the lucrative cultivation of citrus declined with the advent of Israeli policies, such as prohibitions on planting new trees and taxation that gave breaks to Israeli producers, factors which militated against growth. Gaza's direct exports of these products to Western markets, as opposed to Arab markets,
1848-583: A massacre were reported to the United Nations General Assembly on 15 December 1956 by UNRWA director Henry Labouisse , who reported from "trustworthy sources" that 275 people were killed in the massacre, of which 140 were refugees and 135 local residents. On 12 November, days after the hostilities had ended, Israel killed 111 people in the Rafah refugee camp during Israeli operations, provoking international criticism. Israel ended
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#17327761717382016-690: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
2184-401: A moderate civil servant acceptable to both factions, resigned due to what he termed harmful behavior by both sides. Fighting spread in the Gaza Strip, with both factions attacking vehicles and facilities of the other side. Following a breakdown in an Egyptian-brokered truce, Israel launched an air strike which destroyed a building used by Hamas. Ongoing violence prompted fear that it could bring
2352-580: A political dimension in the 19th century as international interest grew and foreign institutions were developed there. The urban elite began to undertake the construction of a modern multi-religious Arab civil society. When the British received from the League of Nations a mandate to administer Palestine after World War I , many British dignitaries in London were surprised to discover so many Christian leaders in
2520-490: A prominent feature of the fighting and mainly targeted Israeli civilians, contrasting with the relatively less violent nature of the First Intifada . With a combined casualty figure for combatants and civilians, the violence is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis, as well as 64 foreigners. Between December 2000 and June 2001, the barrier between Gaza and Israel
2688-565: A religious community of the Palestinian people consisting of those who identify as Christians , including those who are cultural Christians in addition to those who actively adhere to Christianity . They are a religious minority within the State of Palestine and within Israel , as well as within the Palestinian diaspora . Applying the broader definition, which groups together individuals with full or partial Palestinian Christian ancestry,
2856-449: A result of a process of syncretization, whereby what had once been pagan practices were later redefined as Christian and subsequently adopted by Muslims. This was especially evident in the fact that Palestine's Muslims and Christians shared many of the same feast days, in honor of the same saints, even if they referred to them by different names. "Shrines dedicated to St. George, for instance, were transformed into shrines honoring Khidr-Ilyas,
3024-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
3192-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
3360-473: A series of air strikes against targets in Gaza following the breakdown of a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas. Israel began a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip on 3 January 2009. Various sites that Israel claimed were being used as weapons depots were struck from the air : police stations, schools, hospitals, UN warehouses, mosques, various Hamas government buildings and other buildings. Israel said that
3528-421: A shift away from violence towards non-violent forms of protest. Some demonstrators were setting tires on fire and launching Molotov cocktails and rocks toward the troops on the opposite side of the border. Israeli officials said the demonstrations were used by Hamas as cover for launching attacks against Israel. In late February 2019, a United Nations Human Rights Council 's independent commission found that of
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#17327761717383696-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
3864-663: A strict blockade on Gaza in order to isolate Hamas from Islamist insurgents in the Sinai." In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and dismantled its settlements. Israel also withdrew from the Philadelphi Route , a narrow strip of land adjacent to the border with Egypt, after Egypt agreed to secure its side of the border after the Agreement on Movement and Access , known as the Rafah Agreement . The Gaza Strip
4032-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
4200-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
4368-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
4536-651: 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. Historically part of the Palestine region , the area was controlled since the 16th century by the Ottoman Empire ; in 1906, the Ottomans and the British Empire set
4704-1110: Is Suheil Dawani , who replaced Bishop Riah Abou Al Assal . Bishop Dr. Munib Younan is the president of the Lutheran World Federation and the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL). Various international Christian organisations provide services in Palestine to Palestinians of all religious backgrounds. A study showed $ 416 million annual spending of Christian institutions on Palestinian society, in sectors such as health care, education, social services, vocational training and development assistance interventions in all Palestinian governorates. The first Christian communities in Roman Judea originated from
4872-486: Is 11 kilometres (7 miles) long. The First Intifada was a sustained series of protests and violent riots carried out by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and Israel. It was motivated by collective Palestinian frustration over Israel's military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as it approached a twenty-year mark, having begun after Israel's victory in
5040-737: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
5208-756: Is a Christian. The former Palestinian representative to the United States, Afif Saffieh , is a Christian, as is the ambassador of the Palestinian Authority in France, Hind Khoury. The Palestinian women's football team has a majority of Muslim girls, but the captain, Honey Thaljieh, is a Christian from Bethlehem. Many of the Palestinian officials such as ministers, advisers, ambassadors, consulates, heads of missions, PLC, PNA, PLO, Fateh leaders and others are Christians. Some Christians were part of
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5376-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
5544-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
5712-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
5880-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
6048-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
6216-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
6384-635: Is now Israel. They protested against Israel's land, air and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip and the United States recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel . Most of the demonstrators demonstrated peacefully far from the border fence. Peter Cammack, a fellow with the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace , argued that the march indicated a new trend in Palestinian society and Hamas, with
6552-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
6720-419: Is one of the most densely populated territories in the world . Gaza is bordered by Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the east and north. The territory has been under Israeli occupation since 1967 . The territorial boundaries were established while Gaza was controlled by Egypt at the conclusion of the 1948 Arab–Israeli war , and it became a refuge for Palestinians who fled or were expelled during
6888-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
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7056-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
7224-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
7392-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
7560-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
7728-534: The 1948 Palestine war and more specifically the 1948 Arab–Israeli War , tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees fled or were expelled to the Gaza Strip. By the end of the war, 25% of Mandatory Palestine's Arab population was in Gaza, though the Strip constituted only 1% of the land. The same year, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East ( UNRWA )
7896-592: The 1948 Palestine war . Later, during the 1967 Six-Day War , Israel captured and occupied the Gaza Strip, initiating its 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 that party's electoral defeat in 2006 to the Sunni Islamic Hamas . Hamas would then take over
8064-637: The 1967 Arab–Israeli War , which resulted in Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories (the Jordanian-annexed West Bank and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip ), the Palestinian Christian population has increased as a whole, but has decreased as a percentage of the total Palestinian population. Many individuals of the Palestinian diaspora who identify as Christians are descendants of
8232-591: The 1967 Arab–Israeli War . The uprising lasted from December 1987 until the Madrid Conference of 1991 , though some date its conclusion to 1993, with the signing of the Oslo Accords . The intifada began on 9 December 1987, in the Jabalia refugee camp of the Gaza Strip after an Israeli army truck collided with a civilian car, killing four Palestinian workers. Palestinians charged that the collision
8400-887: The Al-Aqsa compound on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem ; the visit itself was peaceful, but, as anticipated, sparked protests and riots that Israeli police put down with rubber bullets and tear gas. The Second Intifada also marked the beginning of rocket attacks and bombings of Israeli border localities by Palestinian guerrillas from the Gaza Strip, especially by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad movements. High numbers of casualties were caused among civilians as well as combatants. Israeli forces engaged in gunfire, targeted killings , and tank and aerial attacks, while Palestinians engaged in suicide bombings , gunfire, stone-throwing , and rocket attacks . Palestinian suicide bombings were
8568-638: The Egypt–Israel peace treaty . Among other things, the treaty provided for the withdrawal by Israel of its armed forces and civilians from the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had captured during the Six-Day War. The Egyptians agreed to keep the Sinai Peninsula demilitarized. The final status of the Gaza Strip, and other relations between Israel and Palestinians, was not dealt with in the treaty. Egypt renounced all territorial claims to territory north of
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#17327761717388736-611: The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem , the church overseeing Orthodox communities in Palestine, Israel and Jordan; to which the majority of the Christian population there belongs to. Within the context of rising Arab nationalism in the 19th century, the movement was inspired by the successful precedent of the Arabization of Syria and Lebanon's Antioch Patriarchate in 1899 . The movement seeks
8904-855: The Holy Land was Palestinian Sally Azar of the Lutheran church in 2023. Since the start of the ongoing Israel–Hamas war in October 2023, there have been several incidents involving Palestinian Christians in the Gaza Strip, most notably the Church of Saint Porphyrius airstrike and the killing of two Catholic women by an Israeli sniper in the Holy Family Parish in northern Gaza . The mayors of Ramallah, Birzeit, Bethlehem, Zababdeh, Jifna, Ein 'Arik, Aboud, Taybeh, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour are Christians. The Governor of Tubas , Marwan Tubassi,
9072-418: The Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and Israel. The general triggers for the unrest are speculated to have been centred on the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit , which was expected to reach a final agreement on the Israeli–Palestinian peace process in July 2000. Outbreaks of violence began in September 2000, after Ariel Sharon , then the Israeli opposition leader , made a provocative visit to
9240-551: The Israel–Hamas war , Hamas had said that it did not want a military escalation in Gaza partially to prevent exacerbating the humanitarian crisis after the 2021 conflict. A tightened blockade since the start of the Israel–Hamas war has contributed to an ongoing famine . 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 km (141 sq mi). With around 2 million Palestinians on approximately 365 km (141 sq mi) of land, Gaza has one of
9408-523: The Jewish Agency's " 11 points in the Negev " plan, in which 11 Jewish villages were built across the Negev in a single night as a response to the Morrison-Grady Plan , which threatened to exclude the Negev from a future Jewish State. In total, between 1967 and 2005, Israel established 21 settlements in Gaza, comprising 20% of the total territory. The economic growth rate from 1967 to 1982 averaged roughly 9.7 percent per annum, due in good part to expanded income from work opportunities inside Israel, which had
9576-400: The Melkite Greek Catholic Church , is Archbishop of Akka , with jurisdiction over Haifa , Acre and the Galilee , and replaced Elias Chacour , a Palestinian refugee, in 2014. Moussa El-Hage , of the Maronite Church , is since 2012 simultaneously Archbishop of the Archeparchy of Haifa and the Holy Land and Patriarchal Exarch of Jerusalem and Palestine . The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem
9744-401: The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed a second agreement , extending the Palestinian Authority to most West Bank towns. Between 1994 and 1996, Israel built the Gaza–Israel barrier to improve security in Israel. The barrier was largely torn down by Palestinians at the beginning of the Second Intifada in September 2000. The Second Intifada was a major Palestinian uprising in
9912-874: The Syrian Christian community in Aboud. During the Ottoman Empire , foreign powers enjoyed positions of guardianship towards minorities, including the French for the Christians of Syria , Lebanon and Palestine . Orthodox Christians more specifically came under the protections of the Russian Empire . This placed Palestinian Christians with protection privileges, and access to missionary schools, which enabled them to engage in commerce with European traders. In addition, Christian merchants had lower rates of duty to pay than their Muslim counterparts, and thus they established themselves as bankers and moneylenders for Muslim landowners, artisans and peasants. This growing middle class produced several newspaper owners and editors and played leading roles in Palestinian political life. The category of 'Palestinian Arab Christian' came to assume
10080-752: The United Kingdom , 1,352 in the United States , and 158 whose locations were unknown. Around 50% of Palestinian Christians belong to the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem , one of the 15 churches of Eastern Orthodoxy . This community has also been known as the Arab Orthodox Christians. There are also Maronites , Melkites , Jacobites , Chaldeans , Latin Catholics , Syriac Catholics , Orthodox Copts , Coptic Catholics , Armenian Orthodox , Armenian Catholics , Quakers (Society of Friends), Methodists , Presbyterians , Anglicans (Episcopal), Lutherans , Evangelicals , Pentecostals , Nazarene , Assemblies of God , Baptists and other Protestants ; in addition to small groups of Jehovah's Witnesses , members of
10248-467: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
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#173277617173810416-444: The esoteric organization Ancient Mystical Order of the Rose Cross , one of the Rosicrucian Orders . Luttif Afif , the commander of the Black September Organization (BSO) unit that carried out the 1972 Munich massacre , was reported to have at least a partial Christian background. He used the alias "Jesus", and named the Munich operation " Iqrit and Biram ", after two Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by
10584-455: The governance of Gaza in a battle 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
10752-424: The monastery of Seridus ), second only to the cluster of monasteries in the Judaean desert (which include the Mar Saba monastery ). Following Muslim conquests , non-Arabic speaking Christians underwent a gradual process of Arabization in which they abandoned Aramaic and Greek in favor of Arabic . The Melkites began abandoning Greek for Arabic , a process which made them the most Arabicised Christians in
10920-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
11088-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
11256-862: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Palestinian Christians [REDACTED] Israel (~148,000) Palestinian Christians ( Arabic : مَسِيحِيُّون فِلَسْطِينِيُّون Masīḥiyyūn Filasṭīniyyūn ) are
11424-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
11592-437: The 1956 Suez Crisis (the Second Arab–Israeli war), Israel invaded Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula. On 3 November, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked Egyptian and Palestinian forces at Khan Yunis . The city of Khan Yunis resisted being captured, and Israel responded with a heavy bombing campaign that inflicted heavy civilian casualties. After a fierce battle, the Israeli 37th Armored Brigade's Sherman tanks broke through
11760-529: The 1967 Arab-Israeli War, "various international agencies struggled to respond" and American Near East Refugee Aid was founded to help victims of the conflict by providing immediate emergency relief. Subsequent to this military victory, Israel created the first Israeli settlement bloc in the Strip, Gush Katif , in the southwest corner near Rafah and the Egyptian border on a spot where a small kibbutz had previously existed for 18 months between 1946 and 1948. The kibbutz community had been established as part of
11928-696: The 1967 war in the aftermath of Israel's takeover of the West Bank and Gaza. Christians within the Palestinian Authority constituted around one in seventy-five residents. In 2009, Reuters reported that 47,000–50,000 Christians remained in the West Bank, with around 17,000 following the various Catholic traditions and most of the rest following the Orthodox church and other eastern denominations. Both Bethlehem and Nazareth , which were once overwhelmingly Christian, now have Muslim majorities. Today about three-quarters of all Bethlehem Christians live abroad, and more Jerusalem Christians live in Sydney , Australia , than in Jerusalem. Christians now comprise 2.5 percent of
12096-453: The 1967 war. Ultimately, the Strip lost 25% (a conservative estimate) of its prewar population between 1967 and 1968. In 1970-1971 Ariel Sharon implemented what became known as a 'five finger' strategy, which consisted in creating military areas and settlements by breaking the Strip into five zones to better enable Israeli occupation, settlement and, by discontinuous fragmentation of the Palestinian zones created, allow an efficient management of
12264-552: The 1990s, an estimate by Professor Bernard Sabella of Bethlehem University postulated that approximately 6.5% of the global Palestinian population was Christian, and that 56% of this figure was living outside of Palestine and Israel. As of 2015 , Palestinian Christians comprise between 1% and 2.5% of the population of the West Bank , and about 3,000 (0.13%) of the population of the Gaza Strip . According to official British Mandate statistics, Christians accounted for 9.5% of
12432-403: The 22-day war. The conflict damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes, 15 of Gaza's 27 hospitals and 43 of its 110 primary health care facilities, 800 water wells, 186 greenhouses, and nearly all of its 10,000 family farms; leaving 50,000 homeless, 400,000–500,000 without running water, one million without electricity, and resulting in acute food shortages. The people of Gaza still suffer from
12600-649: The 282 Palestinian Arab rebel leaders that participated in the 1936-1939 revolt in British Palestine were Christians. The rebels bore flags with a cross and crescent , symbolizing Christianity and Islam, respectively. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded in 1967 by George Habash , a Christian. Habash once stated that he believed there was perfect harmony between his Christian religion, his Arab nationalism, his Islamic culture, and his Marxist politics. Wadie Haddad ,
12768-400: The 489 cases of Palestinian deaths or injuries analyzed, only two were possibly justified as responses to danger by Israeli security forces. The commission deemed the rest of the cases illegal, and concluded with a recommendation calling on Israel to examine whether war crimes or crimes against humanity had been committed, and if so, to bring those responsible to trial. On 28 February 2019,
12936-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
13104-834: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
13272-769: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others. Patriarch Theophilos III is the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem since 2005. He replaced Irenaios (in office from 2001), who was deposed by the church synod after a term surrounded by controversy and scandal over a sale of property owned by the Greek Orthodox Church to Jewish investors. The Israel government initially refused to recognize Theophilos's appointment but finally granted full recognition in December 2007, despite
13440-491: The Commission said it had " 'reasonable grounds' to believe Israeli soldiers may have committed war crimes and shot at journalists, health workers and children during protests in Gaza in 2018." Israel refused to take part in the inquiry and rejected the report. Before the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis , Gaza had 48% unemployment and half of the population lived in poverty. During the crisis, 66 children died (551 children in
13608-526: The Gaza Strip. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded by declaring a state of emergency , dissolving the unity government and forming a new government without Hamas participation. PNA security forces in the West Bank arrested a number of Hamas members. In late June 2008, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan declared the West Bank-based cabinet formed by Abbas as "the sole legitimate Palestinian government". Egypt moved its embassy from Gaza to
13776-501: The Gaza–Egypt border for fear of being kidnapped or harmed. Arab foreign ministers and Palestinian officials presented a united front against control of the border by Hamas. Meanwhile, Israeli and Egyptian security reports said that Hamas continued smuggling in large quantities of explosives and arms from Egypt through tunnels. Egyptian security forces uncovered 60 tunnels in 2007. On 23 January 2008, after months of preparation during which
13944-520: The Greek-dominated patriarchate's early support to Zionism . The Orthodox laity, which is mostly Arab, maintains that the patriarchate was forcibly Hellenized in 1543, while the Greek clergy says that the patriarchate was historically Greek. Opposition to the Greek clergy turned violent in the late 19th century, when they came under physical attack by the Arab laity in the streets. The movement
14112-590: The IDF during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War . Theresa Halaseh, another member of the BSO, was a Christian and also a Fatah member. She participated in the BSO hijacking of Sabena Flight 571 , and was captured but later released in a 1983 prisoner exchange. There have been at least two known Christian militants from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades , Chris Bandak and Daniel Saba George, both from Bethlehem. Bandak
14280-629: The IDF initiated Operation Brother's Keeper , in which some 350 Palestinians, including nearly all of the active Hamas militants in the West Bank, were arrested. Hamas subsequently fired a greater number of rockets into Israel from Gaza, triggering a seven-week-long conflict between the two sides. It was one of the deadliest outbreaks of open conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in decades. The combination of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli airstrikes resulted in thousands of deaths,
14448-549: The IDF ordered Christians to evacuate for a brief spell, an order that was then confirmed as a permanent expulsion. Sometimes in a mixed Druze-Christian village like al-Rama, only the Christians were initially expelled towards Lebanon, but, thanks to the intervention of the local Druze, they were permitted to return. Important Christian figures were sometimes allowed to return, on condition they help Israel among their communities. Archbishop Hakim , with many hundreds of Christians,
14616-472: The IDF. Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups in Israel. Statistically, Christian Arabs in Israel have the highest rates of educational attainment among all religious communities, according to a data by Israel Central Bureau of Statistics in 2010, 63% of Israeli Christian Arabs have had college or postgraduate education , the highest of any religious and ethno-religious group. Despite
14784-612: The Israeli disengagement, Gaza is still considered occupied by Israel under international law . The current blockade prevents people and goods from freely entering or leaving the territory, leading to Gaza often being called an "open-air prison". The UN, as well as at least 19 human-rights organizations, have urged Israel to lift the blockade. Israel has justified its blockade on the strip with wanting to stop flow of arms, but Palestinians and rights groups say it amounts to collective punishment and exacerbates dire living conditions. Prior to
14952-465: The Levant. Most Arab Ghassanids remained Christian and joined Melkite and Syriac communities within what is now Jordan , Israel , Palestine , Syria , and Lebanon . The eleventh century Melkite bishop of Gaza Sulayman al-Ghazzi holds a unique place in the history of Arab Christian literature as author of the first diwan of Christian religious poetry in Arabic. His poems give insights into
15120-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
15288-524: The Oslo Accords, a phased transfer of governmental authority to the Palestinians took place. Much of the Strip came under Palestinian control, except for the settlement blocs and military areas. The Israeli forces left Gaza City and other urban areas, leaving the new Palestinian Authority to administer and police those areas. The Palestinian Authority, led by Yasser Arafat , chose Gaza City as its first provincial headquarters. In September 1995, Israel and
15456-611: The Palestinian Arab political movements. The British authorities in the Mandate of Palestine had difficulty understanding the commitment of the Palestinian Christians to Palestinian nationalism . Palestinian Christian-owned Falastin was founded in 1911 in the then Arab-majority city of Jaffa . The newspaper is often described as one of the most influential newspapers in historic Palestine, and probably
15624-442: The Palestinian Authority , although some aid money was redirected to humanitarian organizations not affiliated with the government. The resulting political disorder and economic stagnation led to many Palestinians emigrating from the Gaza Strip. In January 2007, fighting erupted between Hamas and Fatah . The deadliest clashes occurred in the northern Gaza Strip. On 30 January 2007, a truce was negotiated between Fatah and Hamas. After
15792-595: The Palestinian territories, mostly in the West Bank, with about 3,000 in the Gaza Strip. In 2022, about 1,100 Christians lived in the Gaza Strip – down from over 1300 in 2014. About 80% of the Christian Palestinians live in an urban environment. In the West Bank, they are concentrated mostly in Jerusalem and its vicinity: Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Ramallah, Bir Zayt, Jifna, Ein Arik, Taybeh. Of
15960-690: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
16128-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
16296-415: The Six-Day War, IDF captured Gaza. Under the then head of Israel's Southern Command Ariel Sharon , dozens of Palestinians, suspected of being members of the resistance, were executed without trial. Between 1967 and 1968, Israel evicted approximately 75,000 residents of the Gaza Strip who Golda Meir described as a "fifth column". In addition, at least 25,000 Gazan residents were prevented from returning after
16464-591: The Strip, but instead treated it as a controlled territory and administered it through a military governor. The influx of over 200,000 refugees from former Mandatory Palestine, roughly a quarter of those who fled or were expelled from their homes during, and in the aftermath of, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War into Gaza resulted in a dramatic decrease in the standard of living. Because the Egyptian government restricted movement to and from Gaza, its inhabitants could not look elsewhere for gainful employment. In June 1967, during
16632-508: The West Bank and Gaza Strip. These contrasted with civil efforts including general strikes , boycotts of Israeli Civil Administration institutions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, an economic boycott consisting of refusal to work in Israeli settlements on Israeli products, refusal to pay taxes, and refusal to drive Palestinian cars with Israeli licenses. In May 1994, following the Palestinian-Israeli agreements known as
16800-492: The West Bank. Saudi Arabia and Egypt supported reconciliation and a new unity government and pressed Abbas to start talks with Hamas. Abbas had always conditioned this on Hamas returning control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority. After the takeover, Israel and Egypt closed their border crossings with Gaza . Palestinian sources reported that European Union monitors fled the Rafah Border Crossing , on
16968-473: The affluent segments of Palestinian society that left the country during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War . In West Jerusalem , over 50% of Christian Palestinians lost their homes to the Israelis, according to the historian Sami Hadawi . Palestinian Christians have played a role in the anti-Zionist movement and related political violence , both before and after the establishment of Israel in 1948. Four out of
17136-419: The appointment of an Arab patriarch, Arab laity control over Jerusalem patriarchate's properties for social and educational purposes, and the use of Arabic as a liturgical language . Initially a church movement among Palestine and Transjordan 's Orthodox Arab Christians in the late 19th century, it was later supported as a Palestinian and Arab nationalist cause and championed by some Arab Muslims, owing to
17304-469: The area. Thousands of homes were bulldozed and large numbers of Bedouin families were exiled to the Sinai. Between 1973 (after the Yom Kippur War ) and 1987, official policy on economic development in the Gaza Strip remained the same as in 1969 with limited local investment and economic opportunity coming primarily from employment in Israel. According to Tom Segev , moving the Palestinians out of
17472-528: The attack was a response to Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel, which totaled over 3,000 in 2008 , and which intensified during the few weeks preceding the operation. Israel advised people near military targets to leave before the attacks. Israeli defense sources said that Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the IDF to prepare for the operation six months before it began, using long-term planning and intelligence-gathering. A total of 1,100–1,400 Palestinians (295–926 civilians) and 13 Israelis were killed in
17640-401: The beginning of the 2015 academic year in protest at budget cuts aimed at them. The strike affected 33,000 pupils, 40 percent of them Muslim. In 2013, Israel covered 65% of the budget of Palestinian Christian schools in Israel, a figure cut that year to 34%. Christians say they now received a third of what Jewish schools receive, with a shortfall of $ 53 million. The rate of students studying in
17808-865: The border. Egypt arrested and later released several armed Hamas militants in the Sinai who presumably wanted to infiltrate into Israel. At the same time, Israel increased its state of alert along the length of the Israel–Egypt Sinai border, and warned its citizens to leave Sinai "without delay." In February 2008, the Israel–Gaza conflict intensified, with rockets launched at Israeli cities. Aggression by Hamas led to Israeli military action on 1 March 2008, resulting in over 110 Palestinians being killed according to BBC News, as well as 2 Israeli soldiers. Israeli human rights group B'Tselem estimated that 45 of those killed were not involved in hostilities, and 15 were minors. On 27 December 2008, Israeli F-16 fighters launched
17976-522: The cessation of hostilities, the Israel–Egypt Armistice Agreement of 24 February 1949 established the line of separation between Egyptian and Israeli forces, as well as the modern boundary between Gaza and Israel, which both signatories declared not to be an international border. The southern border with Egypt was unchanged. Palestinians living in Gaza or Egypt were issued All-Palestine passports. Egypt did not offer them citizenship. From
18144-574: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
18312-612: The country had been a persistent element of Zionist thinking from early times. In December 1967, during a meeting at which the Security Cabinet brainstormed about what to do with the Arab population of the newly occupied territories, one of the suggestions Prime Minister Levi Eshkol proffered regarding Gaza was that the people might leave if Israel restricted their access to water supplies. A number of measures, including financial incentives, were taken shortly afterwards to begin to encourage Gazans to emigrate elsewhere. Following
18480-489: The dwindling Christian community". In November 2009, Berlanty Azzam, a Palestinian Christian student from Gaza, was expelled from Bethlehem and was not allowed to continue her studying. She had two months left for the completion of her degree. Berlanty Azzam said the Israeli military handcuffed her, blindfolded her, and left her waiting for hours at a checkpoint on her way back from a job interview in Ramallah. She described
18648-587: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
18816-584: The end of 1949, they received aid directly from UNRWA. During the Suez Crisis (1956), Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula were occupied by Israeli troops, who withdrew under international pressure. The All-Palestine government was accused of being little more than a façade for Egyptian control, with negligible independent funding or influence. It subsequently moved to Cairo and dissolved in 1959 by decree of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser . During
18984-616: The end of the Fatah-Hamas coalition government , and possibly the end of the Palestinian authority. Hamas spokesman Mousa Abu Marzook blamed the conflict between Hamas and Fatah on Israel, stating that the constant pressure of economic sanctions resulted in the "real explosion." From 2006 to 2007 more than 600 Palestinians were killed in fighting between Hamas and Fatah. 349 Palestinians were killed in fighting between factions in 2007. 160 Palestinians killed each other in June alone. Following
19152-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
19320-410: The fact that Arab Christians only represent 2.1% of the total Israeli population, in 2014 they accounted for 17.0% of the country's university students, and for 14.4% of its college students. Christians are proportionally more likely to have attained a bachelor's or higher academic degrees than the Israeli national average. Christian Arabs additionally have one of the highest rates of success in
19488-607: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
19656-404: The fact that, as of the beginning of the twentieth century, they shared many of the same customs as their Muslim neighbors. In some respects, this was a consequence of Christians adopting what were essentially Islamic practices, many of which were derived of sharî'ah . In others, it was more the case that the customs shared by both Muslims and Christians derived from neither faith, but rather were
19824-558: The field of medicine was also higher among the Christian Arab students, compared with all the students from other sectors. The percentage of Arab Christian women who are higher education students is higher than other sectors. In September 2014, Israel's interior minister signed an order that the self-identified ''Aramean Christian'' minority in Israel could register as Arameans rather than Arabs. The order will affect about 200 families. The first local woman cleric ordained in
19992-457: The followers of Jesus of Nazareth , who was put to death and crucified by order of Prefect Pontius Pilate in 30–33; they were Aramaic speaking Jewish Christian and, later, Latin and Greek -speaking Romans and Greeks , who were in part descendants from previous settlers of the regions, such as Syro-Phoenicians , Arameans , Greeks , Persians , and Arabs such as Nabataeans . Contrary to other groups of oriental Christians such as
20160-528: The following centuries, abandoning their distinct Western Aramaic languages in favour of Greek . By the 7th century, Jerusalem , Gaza and Byzantine Palestine became the epicentre of Greek culture in the Orient. In the fourth century, the monk Hilarion introduced monasticism in the area around Gaza which became a flourishing monastic center (including the Saint Hilarion Monastery and
20328-510: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
20496-455: The heavily fortified lines outside of Khan Yunis held by the 86th Palestinian Brigade. After some street-fighting with Egyptian soldiers and Palestinian fedayeen , Khan Yunis fell to the Israelis. Upon capturing Khan Yunis, the IDF committed an alleged massacre . Israeli troops started executing unarmed Palestinians, mostly civilians; in one instance men were lined up against walls in central square and executed with machine guns . The claims of
20664-519: The incident as "frightening" and claimed Israeli official treated her like a criminal and denied her an education because she is a Palestinian Christian from Gaza. In July 2014, during operation Protective Edge an Israeli-Arab Christian demonstration was held in Haifa in a protest against Muslim extremism in the Middle East (concerning the rise of the Islamic State ) and in support of Israel and
20832-597: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
21000-468: The international border. The Gaza Strip remained under Israeli military administration. The Israeli military became responsible for the maintenance of civil facilities and services. After the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty, a 100-meter-wide buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt known as the Philadelphi Route was established. The international border along the Philadelphi corridor between Egypt and Gaza
21168-613: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
21336-696: The largely Assyrian Nestorians , the vast majority of Palestinian Christians went under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Roman emperors after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD (which would be part of the Eastern Orthodox Church after the Great Schism ), and were known by other Syrian Christians as Melkites (followers of the king). The Melkites were heavily Hellenised in
21504-1940: The largest portion of the Palestinians living abroad at the time: 32 in Australia , 17 in Africa , 1 in Austria , 1 in Belgium , 1 in Bulgaria , 2 in Canada , 242 in Egypt , 34 in France , 59 in Germany , 1 in Greece , 7 in Italy , 4 in Morocco , 1 in Mesopotamia , 1 in Paraguay , 5 in Persia , 4 in Russia , 1 in South Africa , 11 in East Africa , 7 in Sudan , 6 in Sweden , 1 in Switzerland , 2 in Spain , 122 in Syria , 95 in Transjordan , 8,517 in South and Central American republics, 17 in Turkey , 6 in
21672-550: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
21840-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
22008-406: The leader of the military wing of the PFLP, was also Christian. Reportedly, Eastern Orthodox priests would bless PFLP hijacking teams before they set out on attacks. Sirhan Sirhan , who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, came from a Christian family and later changed church denominations several times, joining Baptist and Seventh-day Adventist churches. However, in 1966, he joined
22176-719: The life of Palestinian Christians and the persecution they suffered under Fatimid caliph al-Hakim . In the late sixteenth century, Christianity in southern Bilad ash-Sham was primarily rural, with a significant portion of the population living in villages and tribes. Christians were dispersed among numerous towns and villages in the vicinity of Jerusalem, some had been inhabited by Christians since Byzantine and Frankish rule. Villages with Christian population included Taybeh , Beit Rima , Jifna an-Nasara , Ramallah , Yabrud , Aboud , Suba , Tuqu , Nahalin , and Artas . The Christians living in these villages were mainly of Greek Orthodox denomination, although exceptions existed, such as
22344-452: The loss of these facilities and homes, especially since they have great challenges to rebuild them. On 5 June 2014, Fatah signed a unity agreement with the Hamas political party. The 2014 Gaza War , also known as Operation Protective Edge, was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip. Following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants,
22512-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
22680-429: The matriculation examinations, (73.9%) in 2017 both in comparison to the Muslims and the Druze and in comparison to all students in the Jewish education system as a group. Arab Christians were also the vanguard in terms of eligibility for higher education , and they have attained a bachelor's degree and academic degree more than the median Israeli population. Christians schools in Israel went on strike in 2015 at
22848-429: The nation's fiercest and most consistent critic of the Zionist movement. It helped shape Palestinian identity and nationalism and was shut down several times by the Ottoman and British authorities, most of the time due to complaints made by Zionists. Following the British takeover of Palestine in 1918 during the final stages of the First World War , groups called " Muslim-Christian Associations " were formed across
23016-624: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
23184-425: The new Mandatory Palestine in order to oppose the Zionist movement and implementation of the Balfour Declaration. In the 1920s, it was noted that the inhabitants of Beit Kahil , Dayr Aban and Taffuh were originally Christian. The Nakba left the multi-denominational Christian Arab communities in disarray. They had little background in theology, their work being predominantly pastoral, and their immediate task
23352-438: The occupation in March 1957, amid international pressure. During the four-month Israeli occupation, 900–1,231 people were killed. According to French historian Jean-Pierre Filiu , 1% of the population of Gaza was killed, wounded, imprisoned or tortured during the occupation. After the dissolution of the All-Palestine Government in 1959, under the excuse of pan-Arabism, Egypt continued to occupy Gaza until 1967. Egypt never annexed
23520-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
23688-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
23856-431: The population of Jerusalem. Those remaining include a few born in the Old City when Christians there constituted a majority. In a 2007 letter from Congressman Henry Hyde to President George W. Bush , Hyde stated that "the Christian community is being crushed in the mill of the bitter Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and that expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were "irreversibly damaging
24024-481: The post-1948 Palestinian Christian refugees who fled from the Arab–Israeli conflict and settled in Christian-majority countries . Most Palestinian Christians nowadays see themselves as culturally and linguistically Arab Christians with ancestors dating back to the first followers of Christ. They claim descent from Romans, Ghassanid Arabs, Byzantines , and Crusaders . That Christian Arabs in Palestine see themselves as Arab nationalistically reflects also
24192-641: The previous conflict). On 13 June 2021, a high level World Bank delegation visited Gaza to witness the damage. Mobilization with UN and EU partners is ongoing to finalize a needs assessment in support of Gaza's reconstruction and recovery. Another escalation between 5 and 8 August 2022 resulted in property damage and displacement of people as a result of airstrikes. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
24360-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
24528-435: The region's international border with Egypt . With the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I and the subsequent partition of the Ottoman Empire , the British deferred the governance of the Gaza Strip area to Egypt, which declined the responsibility. Britain itself kept and ruled the territory it occupied in 1917–18, from 1920 until 1948 under the internationally accepted frame of " Mandatory Palestine ". During
24696-412: The release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit . Daniel Saba George ("Abu Hamama"), who was also a senior Tanzim operative, was killed by Israel in 2006. An image was later taken of George's Christian funeral in Bethlehem, and a poster of him with Christian imagery was seen put up in the city that same year. The Arab Orthodox Movement is a political and social movement aiming for the Arabization of
24864-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
25032-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
25200-498: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
25368-400: The steel reinforcement of the border barrier was weakened, Hamas destroyed several parts of the wall dividing Gaza and Egypt in the town of Rafah . Hundreds of thousands of Gazans crossed the border into Egypt seeking food and supplies. Due to the crisis, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered his troops to allow the Palestinians in but to verify that they did not bring weapons back across
25536-484: The term was applied to an estimated 500,000 people globally in the year 2000. As most Palestinians are Arabs , the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Christians also identify as Arab Christians . Palestinian Christians belong to one of a number of Christian denominations , including Eastern Orthodoxy , Oriental Orthodoxy , Catholicism (both the Latin Church and the Eastern-Rite Churches ), and Protestantism ( Anglicanism , Lutheranism , etc.), among others. In
25704-434: The total Christian population of 185,000 in Israel , about 80% are designated as Arabs, many of whom self-identify as Palestinian. The majority (56%) of Palestinian Christians live in the Palestinian diaspora. In the 1922 census of Palestine there were approximately 73,000 Christian Palestinians: 46% Orthodox, 40% Catholic (20% Roman Catholic, and 20% Eastern Catholic ). The census recorded over 200 localities with
25872-425: The total population (and 10.8% of Palestine's Arabs ) in 1922 and 7.9% of the total population in 1946. Over the course of the 1947–1949 Palestine war between the Palestinian Arabs and the Palestinian Jews , a large number of these Christians—as part of the Arab community— fled or were expelled by Jewish militias from what would become recognized as Israeli territory following the 1949 Armistice Agreements . Since
26040-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
26208-449: The vast majority of which were Gazan Palestinians. In 2018–2019, a series of protests , also known as the Great March of Return, were held each Friday in the Gaza Strip near the Israel–Gaza barrier from 30 March 2018 until 27 December 2019, during which a total of 223 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces. The demonstrators demanded that the Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return to lands they were displaced from in what
26376-408: The victory of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election , Hamas and Fatah formed the Palestinian authority national unity government headed by Ismail Haniyeh . Shortly after, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in the course of the Battle of Gaza (June 2007), seizing government institutions and replacing Fatah and other government officials with its own. By 14 June, Hamas fully controlled
26544-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
26712-436: The world's highest population densities . More than 70% of Gaza's population are Palestinian refugees , half of whom are under the age of 18. Sunni Muslims make up most of Gaza's population, 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
26880-412: Was a deliberate response for the killing of an Israeli in Gaza days earlier. Israel denied that the crash, which came at time of heightened tensions, was intentional or coordinated. The Palestinian response was characterized by protests, civil disobedience , and violence. There was graffiti , barricading , and widespread throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails at the IDF and its infrastructure within
27048-477: Was allowed reentry on expressing a willingness to campaign against Communists in Israel and among his flock. After the war of 1948, the Christian population in the West Bank, under Jordanian control, dropped slightly, largely due to economic problems. This contrasts with the process occurring in Israel where Christians left en masse after 1948. Constituting 21% of Israel's Arab population in 1950, they now make up just 9% of that group. These trends accelerated after
27216-476: Was established to administer various refugee programmes. On 22 September 1948 (near the end of the Arab–Israeli War), in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza City , the Arab League proclaimed the All-Palestine Government, partly to limit Transjordan 's influence over Palestine. The All-Palestine Protectorate was quickly recognized by six of the Arab League's then-seven members (excluding Transjordan): Egypt, Syria , Lebanon , Iraq , Saudi Arabia , and Yemen . After
27384-419: Was imprisoned by Israel for shooting at Israeli motorists during the Second Intifada , and at that time was described as the only Christian in the entire Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. However, during a meeting with Bandak's family in 2009, Palestinian Authority official Issa Qaraqe hinted that there were other imprisoned Christian militants as well. Bandak was later released in 2011 as part of an exchange for
27552-468: Was left under the control of the Palestinian Authority . In the Palestinian parliamentary elections held on 25 January 2006, Hamas won a plurality of 42.9% of the total vote and 74 out of 132 total seats (56%). When Hamas assumed power the next month, Israel, the United States, the EU, Russia and the UN demanded that Hamas accept all previous agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist, and renounce violence; when Hamas refused, they cut off direct aid to
27720-464: Was prohibited except through Israeli marketing vehicles, in order to assist Israeli citrus exports to the same markets. The overall result was that large numbers of farmers were forced out of the agricultural sector. Israel placed quotas on all goods exported from Gaza, while abolishing restrictions on the flow of Israeli goods into the Strip. Sara Roy characterised the pattern as one of structural de-development. On 26 March 1979, Israel and Egypt signed
27888-582: Was reconstructed. A barrier on the Gaza Strip-Egypt border was constructed starting in 2004. The main crossing points are the northern Erez Crossing into Israel and the southern Rafah Crossing into Egypt. The eastern Karni Crossing used for cargo, closed down in 2011. Israel controls the Gaza Strip's northern borders, as well as its territorial waters and airspace. Egypt controls Gaza Strip's southern border, under an agreement between it and Israel. Neither Israel or Egypt permits free travel from Gaza as both borders are heavily militarily fortified. "Egypt maintains
28056-468: Was subsequently focused on holding Arab Orthodox conferences, the first of which was held in Jaffa in 1923, and most recently in Amman in 2014. One outcome of the 1923 conference was the laity's establishment of tens of Orthodox churches, clubs and schools in Palestine and Jordan over the decades. There were historically also several interventions to solve the conflict by the Ottoman , British (1920–1948), and Jordanian (1948–1967) authorities, owing to
28224-452: Was to assist the thousands of homeless refugees. But it also sowed the seeds for the development of a Liberation Theology among Palestinian Arab Christians. There was a differential policy of expulsion. More lenience was applied to the Christians of the Galilee where expulsion mostly affected Muslims: at Tarshiha , Me'eliya, Dayr al-Qassi , and Salaban , Christians were allowed to remain while Muslims were driven out. At Iqrit and Bir'im
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