on to say that in its current state, Rafah was in ruins, but was an Ayyubid postal station on the road to Egypt after nearby Deir al-Balah.
Ottoman and Egyptian period
Ottoman records in the 16th century show a small village of 16 taxpayers.
In 1799, the Revolutionary Army of France commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte passed through Rafah during the invasion of Egypt and Syria.
Rafah was the boundary between the provinces of Egypt and Syria. In 1832, the area came under Egyptian occupation of Muhammad Ali, which lasted until 1840.
In 1881, Archduke Ludwig Salvator of Austria wrote
Fragments of gray granite pillars, still standing, are here to be met with about the road, the fields, and the sand, and we saw one lying on the ground half buried... The pillars are the remains of an ancient temple, Raphia, and are of special importance in the eyes of the Arabs, who call them Rafah, as they mark the boundary between Egypt and Syria.
—Ludwig Salvator, The Caravan Route between Egypt and Syria
Modern times
In 1917, the British army captured Rafah, and used it as a base for their attack on Gaza. The presence of the army bases was an economic draw that brought people back to the city, and in 1922 it had a population of 600. By 1948, the population had risen to 2,500.
After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the refugee camps were established. In 1956 the Israeli army - in retaliation for a series of raids executed by the fedayeen - killed 111 people, including 103 refugees, in the Palestinian refugee camp of Rafah.
During the 1967 Six-Day War, the Israel Defense Force captured Rafah with the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, the population was about 55,000, of whom only 11,000 lived in Rafah itself.
In the summer of 1971, the IDF, under General Ariel Sharon (then head of the IDF southern command), destroyed approximately 500 houses in the refugee camps of Rafah in order to create patrol
