Kiryat Gat was mistakenly 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 named Tel Erani and identified it as the Philistine city of Gath. Later archeologists proved this to be incorrect, but not before Kiryat Gat had been named in 1954. It proved too difficult to subsequently change the city’s name. This event cooled earlier enthusiasm for restoring biblical names more widely across the region.
The location most favored for Gath now is Tel es-Safi, thirteen kilometers (8.1 miles) to the northeast.
History
Historical setting of Kiryat Gat
Kiryat 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 Palestinian Arab village of Iraq al-Manshiyya, which was depopulated during the 1948 Palestine 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 onto land near the former village of Al-Faluja.
The population of Kiryat Gat rose from 4,400 inhabitants in 1958 to 17,000 in 1969, mostly Jewish immigrants from North Africa. The economy was initially based on processing the agricultural produce of the Lachish region, such as cotton and wool. In December 1972, Kiryat Gat's municipal status was upgraded and it became Israel's 31st city.
During the 1990s, the mass immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel brought many new residents to the town and its population grew to 42,500 by 1995. The development of the Rabin industrial zone on the eastern edge of the city, and the opening of Highway 6 further improved the economy of the city.
In 2018, the first residents began moving into Carmei Gat, a new neighborhood to the north of Kiryat Gat. The area has attracted a diverse population, including a significant Anglo community. It has grown to approximately 10,000 housing units, with plans underway to double the city's population in the coming years. In 2026, a 2,000-year-old ritual bath and stone vessels were discovered at the neighborhood's construction site, marking the first evidence of an ancient Jewish settlement in the transitional zone between the northern Negev and the Judean lowlands, an area where no Jewish settlements had previously been documented.
Climate
Kiryat Gat has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa) and a hot semi-arid climate (Bsh). Summers are hot and dry, and winters are moderately rainy and mild. The annual amount of precipitation is around 405 mm and mostly falls in winter. The mean daily maximum temperature in January is 17 °C, while in August it is 33 °C.
Demographics
Historical population
Year
Pop.
±%
1972
19,900
—
1983
25,800
+29.6%
1995
43,700
+69.4%
2008
47,500
+8.7%
2022
63,386
+33.4%
2024
72,139
+13.8%
In 2012, the ethnic makeup of the city was 93.8 percent Jewish. In its early years, Kiryat Gat was populated mainly by Jews of Sephardi/Mizrahi origin. Since the mass immigration of Soviet Jews, approximately one third of the inhabitants hail from the former Soviet Union.
Economy
The HP, Intel, and Micron production plants in Kiryat Gat
The Polgat textile factory was the main employer in the town until it closed in the 1990s. In 1999, Intel opened a chip fabrication plant, known as Fab 18, to produce Pentium 4 chips and flash memories. Intel received a grant of $525 million from the Israeli government to build the plant. In February 2006, the cornerstone was laid for Intel's second Kiryat Gat plant, Fab 28. Despite this, Kiryat Gat has one of Israel's highest unemployment rates. In 2021, Intel announced a $10 billion investment in new manufacturing in Kiryat Gat.
The headquarters and small-arms (guns) manufacturing facility of Israeli Weapons Industries is located in Kiryat Gat.
View of Kiryat Gat's industrial area from Tel Erani
Kiryat Gat has 25 schools with an enrollment of 10,676. Of these schools, 18 are elementary schools with a student population of 5,498, and 13 are high schools with a student population of 5,178. In 2001, 54.7% of Kiryat Gat's 12th grade students graduated with a matriculation certificate. Kiryat Gat has a Pedagogic Center, science centers, a computerized library and a center devoted to industry, art and technology. In 2012, a high school student from Kiryat Gat won first prize in the First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics competition.
Voting patterns
In the 2022 election, 74 percent of voters in Kiryat Gat voted for the parties of the right-wing coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu, while 24 percent voted for the parties of the center-left coalition led by Yair Lapid and 0.1 percent voted for the Arab parties.
Miri Regev (born 1965), politician and a former Brigadier General. She is a member of the Cabinet as the Minister of Culture and Sport from 2015–2020 and the Minister of Transportation since 2020
Miki Zohar (born 1980), politician. He is a former member of the Kiryat Gat City Council, a member of Knesset from 2015 to 2023, and a member of Cabinet as the Minister of Culture and Sport since 2022.
12"Israeli Life: Name Calling". Hadassah Magazine. 22 February 2005. Sometimes even the experts can be wrong however. Example: the southern town of Kiryat Gat. A mistake was discovered years after the name was registered and placed on the official record. "They…thought that the biblical Tel Gat was in that region. It turned out that this wasn't the case…but we couldn't change the name," Bitan said.
12Rainey, A.F. (1978). "The Toponymics of Eretz-Israel". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (231). The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The American Schools of Oriental Research: 1–17. doi:10.2307/1356743. JSTOR1356743. S2CID163634741.: "Today there are Hebrew names not only for modern communities such as kibbutzim, settlement towns, etc., but for topographical features (hills, water sources, etc.), and antiquity sites as well. The majority of these are Hebraized forms of the former Arabic name, e.g., Arabic Tell 'Arâd is Tel ʿArad, Tell Jezer is now Tel Gezer, Khirbet Mešâš has become Tel Masos. Frequently, the new Hebrew form is not really cognate to the Arabic but was chosen for its general resemblance; Tell el-Fâr: "The Mound of the Mouse" has been promoted to Tel Par: "The Mound of the Bull." The earlier enthusiasm for restoring biblical names to their ancient sites has cooled down somewhat, especially after Tell (ʿArâq) el-Menšîyeh, changed to Tel Gat, was proved not to be a suitable candidate for Gath of the Philistines. Now the site is called Tel ʿErani after the epithet of Sheikh Ahmed el-ʿAreinī, whose tomb is located there."
↑Horton Harris (2011). "The location of Ziklag: a review of the candidate sites, based on Biblical, topographical and archaeological evidence". Palestine Exploration Quarterly. 143 (2): 119–133. doi:10.1179/003103211x12971861556954. S2CID162186999.
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