Karatiyya () was a Palestinian Arab village of 1,370, located northeast of Gaza, situated in a flat area with an elevation of along the coastal plain of Palestine and crossed by Wadi al-Mufrid. History Byzantine ceramics have been found here. In the 12th century, a castle called Galatie was built on the village site by the Crusaders, it was subsequently captured by the Ayyubids under Saladin in 1187, and destroyed in September 1191. The place called Kulat el Fenish by the village was apparently once a church. The remains were seen in 1875: "The tower on the mound is called Kulat el Fenish. It is a solid block of masonry, standing some 20 or 30 feet in height. Near it lie shafts and bases of white marble, and an elaborate cornice, well and deeply cut. There is also a font, like that at Beit 'Auwa (Sheet XXI.), formed by four intersecting circles, and measuring 37 feet along the diameter, and 2 feet high." In 1226, Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi writes of the village under Ayyubid rule as "Karatayya" as "a town near Bait Jibrin, in the Province of Filastin. It belongs to Jerusalem." The Mamluk sultan al-Nasir ibn Qalawun camped in Karatayya in 1299 on his way to fight the Mongols. 14th-century Arab geographer Al-Dimashqi reports that at times it was a part of Mamlakat Ghazzah ("Kingdom of Gaza"). Ottoman era Karatiyya was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with the rest of Palestine, and by the 1596 tax records it was named Karta, a village in the nahiya of Gaza, part of Sanjak of Gaza. It had a population of 46 Muslim households, an estimated 253 persons. The villagers paid a fixed tax rate of 33,3% on various agricultural products, including wheat, barley, fruit, vineyards, beehives, and goats; a total of 5,830 akçe. In 1838 Edward Robinson noted it as Kuratiyeh, a Muslim village in the Gaza district. He further noted a ruined tower of "modern" date, built partly of (adobe) bricks; and a few ancient columns lying about. In 1863 Victor Guérin found it to be a small village with many houses demolished. To the north of this hamlet, on a nearby hill, were huge sections of walls and the remains of a square tower, three quarters destroyed, called "El-Kala'", or "the Castle". South of the village was a , decorated with two ancient grey-white marble columns.