Short answers, pulled from the story.
Arish is the capital of Egypt's North Sinai Governorate and the largest city on the Sinai Peninsula. It sits on the Mediterranean coast 344 kilometers northeast of Cairo and 45 kilometers west of the Egypt-Gaza border.
The origin of the name Arish is unresolved among scholars, with five competing theories. One traces it to Arabic huts called arsh built after the older city of Rinokoloura fell into ruin in the 7th century, while others point to a phonetic transcription of an earlier name or a Byzantine-era renaming.
Ancient authors explained Rinokoloura as a compound of the Greek words for nose and for cut short. Following Seneca's account, scholars believe a 4th century BC Persian king, either Artaxerxes II or Artaxerxes III, punished people in Syria by cutting off their noses, and the affected places were renamed for that disfigurement.
During the Six Day War, Israeli forces killed hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war and wounded soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula on the 8th of June 1967, according to the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. Survivors alleged that around 400 wounded Egyptians were buried alive outside El Arish International Airport and that 150 prisoners were run over by tanks.
Arish came under Israeli occupation after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and was returned to Egypt in 1979 following the signing of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. Israeli forces had also briefly controlled the city earlier, during the 1948 Palestine war and the 1956 Suez War.
Arish became a staging point for relief efforts into the Gaza Strip during the 2020s Israel-Hamas Gaza war. Its seaport received relief supplies and hosted hospital ships, while the surrounding desert held trucks carrying supplies and makeshift field hospitals.