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Over the course of the twentieth century alone, Gaza has experienced five different systems of rule: Ottoman, British, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian autonomy. Its conditions - economic, demographic, and even geographic - have changed dramatically over this period. Even with all of these changes, and the crises that produced and accompanied them, there has been a fair degree of continuity in Gaza's government. This historical ethnography of Gazan civil service, then, examines detailed practices of bureaucracy during a tumultuous fifty-year period (that of the British Mandate and the Egyptian Administration) to understand how such continuities are produced and how, as well, the crises of regime change and other instabilities affect the everyday work of rule. "Governing Gaza" gives attention to both continuity and rupture, both stability and crisis, and both regularity and exceptionality in the work of rule. Recognizing that this variety of practices is not accidentally arrayed in government, the book offers a framework for understanding how these seemingly (and often actually) contradictory features operate together to form a ruling practice.