Editing Gaza City (section)

===Hellenistic period ===

[[Alexander the Great]] [[Siege of Gaza (332 BCE)|besieged Gaza]], the last city to resist his conquest on his path to Egypt, for five months before capturing it 332 BC;<ref name="STF-J"/> the inhabitants were either killed or taken captive. Alexander brought in local Bedouins to populate Gaza and organized the city into a ''[[polis]]'' (or "[[city-state]]").

In [[Seleucid]] times, [[Seleucus I Nicator]] or one of his successors renamed Gaza into '''Seleucia''' to control the surrounding area against the Ptolemies.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}} [[Greek culture]] consequently took root and Gaza earned a reputation as a flourishing center of [[Hellenistic period|Hellenistic]] learning and philosophy.<ref name="Ring and Salkin">Ring and Salkin, 1994, p.287.</ref> During the [[Third War of the Diadochi]], [[Ptolemy I Soter]] defeated [[Demetrius I of Macedon]] in [[Battle of Gaza (312 BC)|a battle]] near Gaza in 312 BC. In 277 BC, following [[Ptolemy II]]'s successful campaign against the [[Nabataeans]] the Ptolemaic fortress of Gaza took control of the spice trade with [[Gerrha]] and [[South Arabia|Southern Arabia]].

Gaza experienced another siege in 96 BC by the [[Hasmonean]] king [[Alexander Jannaeus]] who "utterly overthrew" the city, killing 500 senators who had fled into the temple of [[Apollo]].<ref name=Pataip149>Patai, 1999, p. 149.</ref>