Palestinians look to salvage Gaza's history from the ruins of Israel's military offensive

Muneer Elbaz remembers the joy of visiting the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza with his family, praying at a site where people have worshipped over centuries as empires came and went.

“These were the best days,” Elbaz said, as he recalled promenading through the lively markets around the mosque before the Israel-Hamas war. “This place transports us from one era to another.”

Today, much of the mosque stands in ruins - like most of Gaza - after being hit by Israeli strikes in the two-year war muffled by an uncertain ceasefire. The sight of the rubble brings to mind “a tree that had been uprooted from the land,” said Elbaz, a Palestinian heritage consultant involved with recovery work at the site.

Israel’s military offensive killed over 72,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and erased entire extended families.

Gone too is some of the heritage of a land with a rich history going back to ancient times. The mosque was built on a site where a Byzantine church had stood, and changed hands and even religions as one invader followed another.

With major military operations halted, Palestinians are gaining a clearer picture of the destruction. Some organizations are trying to save what they can at historical sites, even as full-scale restoration - and the broader reconstruction of the territory - face major obstacles.

Israel launched its offensive after Hamas killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. The military accuses Hamas of concealing military assets beneath or near heritage sites, as well as other civilian structures.

The UN cultural agency, in an ongoing assessment based on satellite images, says it has verified damage to at least 150 sites since the start of the war. They include 14 religious sites, 115 buildings of historical or artistic interest, nine monuments and eight archaeological sites.

They are fragments of Gaza’s soul, connecting Palestinians to a place and a history that many fear is at risk of being erased.

“These sites were an important element that solidifies the presence of the Palestinian people on this land and that represents the continuity of their cultural identity,” said Issam Juha, co-director of the Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“They want to erase the Palestinian identity and Palestinian heritage and ... to remove any connection that keeps the Palestinian society clinging to this land,” he said.

Associated Press