Unknown Soldier's Square
Soldier's Square or Square of the Unknown Soldier (Arabic: ميدان الجندي المجهول Midan al-Jundi al-Majhool) is a city square in Gaza City, State of Palestine, situated along Omar Mukhtar Street in the Rimal district. It used to be a large public garden popular with unemployed Gazans during the day and promenading families in the evenings.[1] During the Gaza war, Israeli forces used bulldozers to flatten the square. The square is now a stretch of brown dirt, the trees have been uprooted, and the playground has been destroyed.[2]
History
[edit | edit source]Soldier's Square receives its name from an unknown native Palestinian Arab soldier (feda'i) who died during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and was buried at the site. The square was built by the Egyptian Army.[3] Prior to Israel's occupation of Gaza in 1967, the center of the site bore a statue pointing north to the rest of Palestine commemorating the soldier. It was pulled down by Israeli authorities and until the 1990s, Soldier's Square was a patch of sand with a white plinth (remnant of the statue) in the center.[4] A public garden was later developed at the site with financial help from Norway,[1] along with a coffeehouse serving visitors to the square.[4] On January 19, 2023, Palestinians gathered in the square to celebrate the release of Maher Younis, a militant who was imprisoned by Israel for 40 years for being part of the then banned Fatah movement and killing an Israeli soldier.[5] After Israeli forces bulldozed the park during the Gaza war, the park has become a refugee camp, for Palestinian people who were displaced as a result of Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip.[6]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b Winter, 2000, p.429.
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- ^ a b Jacobs, 1998, p.455."
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Bibliography
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External links
[edit | edit source]A Postcard, the Unknown Soldier Square in Gaza, 1995 from the Palestinian Museum's Digital Archive
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