Al-Mawasi is a fertile area for agriculture in the Gaza Strip. It is along the coast and has many sand dunes. Al-Mawasi is fourteen kilometers long and one kilometer wide, making up about 3% of the Gaza Strip. It is a Palestinian Bedouin town and prior to the 2005 unilateral Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip, it was a Palestinian enclave within the Israeli settlements of Gush Katif. Al-Mawasi had a population of 1,409 in the middle of 2006. Prior to the Israel–Hamas war, al-Mawasi had a population of 9,000. It has a number of buildings with a maximum of 100 structures.