GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Nothing remains of the Gaza Strip movie theaters except their names used to describe squares located nearby. These names have become associated, in the minds of the new generation of Gazans, with geographical locations, as the meaning of the term cinema is no longer part of their collective memory. At the beginning of the first intifada in 1987, all movie theaters in Gaza were closed, which weakened the nascent Palestinian cinema’s development.
According to Gaza cinema historian Mahmoud Roqa, the Gaza Strip hosted a number of movie theaters during the second part of the 1940s, with al-Khadra cinema in the Shajaiya neighborhood, located in central Gaza City, being the first among them. At the beginning of the 1950s, al-Khadra cinema was relocated and its name changed to al-Samer cinema. Subsequently, the mid-1950s saw the emergence of al-Jala and al-Nasr cinemas, as well as the Amer drive-in theater, all of which were located in Gaza City.
“These theaters ceased to operate as a result of the Israeli occupation of Gaza in 1967," Roqa told Al-Monitor. "Movie theaters opened again in the early 1970s, when new theaters appeared with fewer facilities than those that preceded them, which were designed in keeping with global standards. Among those new theaters were the Sabrine, al-Salam and al-Hurriya cinemas in Rafah, another al-Hurriya branch in Khan Yunis and al-Shati cinema near the Shati refugee camp.”
Roqa said that movie theaters continued to operate in Gaza until the beginning of the intifada in 1987; a few intellectuals attempted to subsequently revive some of them after years of closure.
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