Editing Hamama (section)

===Ottoman era===
Hamama, like the rest of [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]], was incorporated into the [[Ottoman Empire]] in 1517. In first Ottoman  [[Defter|tax register]] of 1526/7 the village had a population of 31 [[Muslim]] households and one [[bachelor]], and it belonged to the ''nahiya'' of Gaza ([[Gaza Sanjak]]).<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Marom |first1=Roy |last2=Taxel |first2=Itamar |date=2023-10-01 |title=Ḥamāma: The historical geography of settlement continuity and change in Majdal 'Asqalan's hinterland, 1270–1750 CE |journal=Journal of Historical Geography |volume=82 |pages=49–65 |doi=10.1016/j.jhg.2023.08.003 |issn=0305-7488|doi-access=free }}</ref> In the tax registers of 1596 it had a population of 84 Muslim households, an estimated 462 persons. The villagers paid taxes on goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; a total of 6,800 [[akçe]]. All of the revenue went to a [[waqf]].<ref>Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 142. Cited in Khalidi, 1992, p. 98.</ref> Its residents came from various places, including the [[Hauran]], and  [[Egypt]].<ref name=":02">Grossman, D. (1986). "Oscillations in the Rural Settlement of Samaria and Judaea in the Ottoman Period". in '''Shomron studies'''. Dar, S., Safrai, S., (eds). Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House. p. 382</ref>

The seventeenth-century traveller [[Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi|al-Nabulsi]] recorded that the tomb (qabr) of Shaykh Ibrahim Abi Arqub was located in the village,<ref name=Petersen146/> while the Syrian [[Sufi]] teacher and traveller Mustafa al-Bakri al-Siddiqi (1688-1748/9) ([[:ar:مصطفى_بن_كمال_الدين_البكري|ar]]) visited Hamama in the first half of the eighteenth century, after leaving [[al-Jura]].<ref>Khalidi, 1992, p. 98.</ref>

[[Roy Marom|Marom]] and [[Itamar Taxel|Taxel]] have shown that during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, nomadic economic and security pressures led to settlement abandonment around Majdal ‘Asqalān, and the southern coastal plain in general. The population of abandoned villages moved to surviving settlements, while the lands of abandoned settlements continued to be cultivated by neighboring villages. Thus, Hamama absorbed the lands of Ṣandaḥanna, Mi‘ṣaba, and excluded the lands of Bashsha, an exclave of al-Majdal.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Marom |first1=Roy |last2=Taxel |first2=Itamar |date=2023-10-01 |title=Ḥamāma: The historical geography of settlement continuity and change in Majdal 'Asqalan's hinterland, 1270–1750 CE |journal=Journal of Historical Geography |volume=82 |pages=49–65 |doi=10.1016/j.jhg.2023.08.003 |issn=0305-7488|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Hamama appears on [[Pierre Jacotin|Jacotin's]] map drawn-up during [[Napoleon]]'s invasion in 1799, though its position is interchanged with that of [[Ashkelon|Majdal]].<ref>Karmon, 1960, p. [http://www.jchp.ucla.edu/Bibliography/Karmon,_Y_1960_Jacotin_Map_(IEJ_10).pdf 173] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191222063351/http://jchp.ucla.edu/Bibliography/Karmon,_Y_1960_Jacotin_Map_(IEJ_10).pdf |date=2019-12-22 }}</ref><ref>Palestine Exploration Quarterly Jan-Apr 1944.''' Jacotin's Map of Palestine'''. D.H.Kellner. p. 161.</ref>  In 1838, ''Hamameh'' was noted as a Muslim village in the  Gaza district.<ref>Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, 2nd appendix, p. [https://archive.org/stream/biblicalresearch03robiuoft#page/118/mode/1up 118]</ref>

Local administrative restructuring began in the 1860s as [[tanzimat]] reforms were implemented at the district level. The construction of the "quarter system"—the partition of village land among groups of families—led to significant economic development, as evidenced by village land usage in the early twentieth century.<ref name=":0" /> 

In 1863, the French explorer [[Victor Guérin]] visited the village, and noted a [[mosque]] constructed with ancient materials. The village had a population of "at least eight hundred souls".<ref>Guérin, 1869, pp. [https://archive.org/stream/descriptiongog02gu#page/129/mode/1up 129] -130</ref> He further noted: "The gardens of Hamama are outstandingly fertile. They are divided by living fences of huge cactus pears, and are planted with olive, fig, pomegranate, mulberry and apricot trees. Here and there slender palm trees and broad treetops of sycamore trees rise above them."<ref>translated by Moshe Gilad, [https://archive.today/20220223172600/https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-this-explorer-visited-israel-in-the-19th-century-and-found-it-to-be-anything-but-emp-1.10629520 'This Explorer Visited Israel in the 19th Century and Found It to Be Anything but Empty'],  22 February 2022,  [[Haaretz]]</ref>

An official Ottoman village list from about 1870 showed that ''Hamame'' had 193 houses and a population of 635, although it only counted the men.<ref>Socin, 1879, p. [https://archive.org/stream/zeitschriftdesde01deut#page/154/mode/1up 154]</ref><ref>Hartmann, 1883, p. [https://archive.org/stream/bub_gb_BZobAQAAIAAJ#page/n939/mode/1up 131], noted 291 houses</ref>