Mukataa

Mukataʿa (Arabic: المقاطعة al-muqāṭaʿah‎‎) is an Arabic word for headquarters or administrative center. Mukataas were mostly built during the British Mandate as Tegart forts and were used both as British government centers and as dwellings for the British administrative staff. Some Mukataas also included police stations and prisons. After the British left, the buildings often functioned similarly under the Jordanians, and then the Israelis.

After the Oslo Accords, the Mukataas were used as governmental offices and headquarters for the Palestinian National Authority. The Mukaatas in Ramallah and Gaza, the two major Palestinian cities, were also used as headquarters to the high Palestinian Authority leadership, including as office for Yasser Arafat, long-time Palestinian Authority president.

During Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, the Israeli Defence Forces raided the Mukataas in the West Bank. Some Mukataas, including the Mukataa in Hebron, were entirely demolished.

The Mukataa in Ramallah, built in the 1920s during the British Mandate by the British engineer Sir Charles Tegart, was a military headquarters, a court of law and a prison. In May 1948, Jordan took over, and used the compound again as a prison and as a residence for Jordanian army officers and their families. From the occupation in 1967 it was the Israeli military headquarters, until the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994. In 1996, Arafat moved in and the Mukataa became the official West Bank headquarters, known as Arafat's compound.

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