Kirjat Gat 5.66

Kiryat Gat, is a city in the Southern District of Israel. It lies 56km south of Tel Aviv, 43km north of Beersheba, 45km from Gaza, and 68km from Jerusalem. In it had a population of.EtymologyKiryat Gat is named for Gath, one of the five major cities of the Philistines. In Hebrew, "gat" means "winepress". In the 1950s, archaeologists found ruins at a nearby tell (Tel Erani) which were mistaken for the Philistine city of Gath. The location most favored for Gath now is Tel es-Safi, thirteen kilometers (13km) to the northeast.HistoryKiryat Gat was founded in 1954, initially as a ma'abara. The following year it was established as a development town by 18 families from Morocco. It was founded just west of the ruins of the Arab village of Iraq al-Manshiyya, which was depopulated in 1949 after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The former location of Iraq al-Manshiyya is now within the built-up area of Kiryat Gat. By 1992, Kiryat Gat had grown and spread also on to the land formerly belonged to the village of Al-Faluja.