A city at the crossroads: how Gaza became one of the great intellectual hubs of the Roman Empire

The 'Medaba Map' (6th century CE) is part of a floor mosaic in the church of Saint George in Madaba, Jordan, containing the oldest surviving cartographic depiction of Jerusalem. Wikimedia/Paul Palmer

The years 2023 and 2024 will certainly be remembered as some of the darkest in the long and often violent history of Gaza.

The recent destruction of schools and universities in the Gaza strip has attracted the attention of the media and concern from the United Nations, which has raised the question of whether the damage may be considered “scholasticide”.