In early February, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MOTA) launched an in depth harm and threat evaluation report on 316 cultural websites throughout Gaza, concluding that 138 had sustained extreme harm—many have been diminished to rubble. The report attributes 71% of the destruction to direct Israeli air strikes and bombings, whereas bulldozer demolitions and tank incursions induced additional harm.
Compiled by the Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation (CCHP), with funding from the British Council’s Cultural Heritage Fund, and in collaboration with Oxford College’s Endangered Archaeology within the Center East and North Africa (EAMENA) group, it supplies an summary of priorities for consultants to plan their response.
The report estimates that the emergency response and mitigation efforts alone, described as part one, would price round €31.2m and take 12 to 18 months, whereas full reconstruction is projected to price round €261m and take as much as eight years.
Regardless of the grim findings, Palestinian heritage consultants are pushing forward with emergency efforts to doc, stabilise and clear rubble from broken historic websites, salvage archaeological stones and safe cultural landmarks. Nevertheless, there may be rising concern that current US remarks about forcibly relocating Palestinians from Gaza to neighbouring international locations might deter a lot wanted donors from supporting restoration efforts.
Pressing intervention should begin as a result of heritage can’t wait, tradition can’t wait
“We hope this is not going to be the case, however such feedback threat hindering and negatively affecting financing,” Jehad Yasin, the final director of excavations and museums at MOTA, tells The Artwork Newspaper. “We wish the US to encourage reconstruction, not hinder it, as there may be a world accountability to help within the restoration and rebuilding course of.”
Distant monitoring
The report has drawn worldwide consideration, with consultants turning into more and more conscious of the urgency of the state of affairs, says the group chief of CCHP’s harm evaluation report, Akram Lilja. “We have now acquired curiosity from many worldwide organisations desirous to contribute to Gaza’s cultural heritage reconstruction,” says Lilja from Sweden, the place he relocated after leaving Gaza a number of years in the past. However he provides that many donors are ready for the end result of negotiations between Israel and Hamas earlier than committing to funding.
Lilja’s group started its harm assessments through the conflict. When a website was inaccessible due to army operations, EAMENA provided help by reviewing high-resolution satellite tv for pc imagery remotely. Michael Fradley, a analysis affiliate at EAMENA, warns that some knowledge might already be outdated because of the quickly altering state of affairs on the bottom. “Now that there’s a ceasefire, as individuals are clearing websites—utterly understandably—it’s possible that harm will enhance. You even have the problems with unexploded ordnance and doable contamination from different sources,” Fradley says, emphasising the necessity for continued distant monitoring.
Nevertheless, he warns that monitoring Gaza stays a pricey operation and extra funding is required. Till 2020, a US prohibition restricted entry to satellite tv for pc imagery of Palestinian territories, with Fradley enjoying a key function in overturning the ban after years of effort. Nevertheless, free high-quality imagery stays restricted in contrast with different areas that EAMENA covers, and the organisation usually has to pay for it.
Web site assessments
Mahmoud Balawi, the preservation officer on the Iwan Middle for Cultural Heritage and a cultural professional for CCHP, cautions that political delays are hindering the trouble to avoid wasting cultural websites, risking irreversible harm to Palestinian heritage.
“We should begin our pressing intervention as a result of heritage can’t wait, tradition can’t wait,” Balawi says from Gaza. He explains that whereas the organisation has a plan, its efforts are difficult by a scarcity of funds and a scarcity of expert personnel with expertise of engaged on historic websites.
Balawi factors out that the Palestinian vacationer ministry gathered the knowledge for its report with solely restricted sources, beneath troublesome and sometimes harmful situations. He recollects a harrowing expertise on the Commonwealth Cemetery in Zawaida, the place primarily British troopers who died through the First World Struggle are buried. He and a colleague discovered themselves alone and surrounded by Israeli drones. Unaware that the world, marked as a secure zone, was truly a buffer zone. Satisfied they have been moments away from dying, they nonetheless determined to finish their inspection and take images. They returned to city safely, feeling as if that they had “been born once more”.
Balawi explains: “I believe it’s a dedication from us to our Holy Land. We predict each one among these websites is like one among our youngsters, like one among our household.” He says that the cemetery was severely broken, and that its outer wall and gate, together with many graves, had been bulldozed. There have been additionally indicators of aerial bombardment in elements of the cemetery.
Intervention initiatives
Final December, Hamoudeh Al-Duhdar, the previous director of web sites and excavation at MOTA and a heritage professional helping CCHP, led emergency works at Gaza Metropolis’s al-Qissariya bazaar, funded by the Dutch-based Cultural Emergency Response (CER). The efforts have been essential for safeguarding the positioning from additional climate harm, significantly rainwater seeping into the outdated mud buildings, which might result in their collapse. The return of shopkeepers to the bazaar, regardless of the instability, additionally highlighted the urgency of the intervention.
Positioned subsequent to the seventh-century Nice Omari Mosque, the bazaar is crucial for the livelihood of Gaza’s Christian neighborhood. It suffered extra harm when a wall from the mosque collapsed onto the world throughout a bombardment. Al-Duhdar’s group eliminated round 240 tonnes of rubble, together with 20 tonnes of salvaged archaeological stones, stabilised the buildings and guarded key historic parts. He additionally led the United Nations Mine Motion Service to the mosque, the place it eliminated two unexploded missiles.
Al-Duhdar’s 12-year-old daughter, Mervat, alongside together with his sister and her 5 kids have been all killed in December 2023 when an Israeli missile struck their dwelling whereas they have been asleep. “My daughter cherished my work and went with me to cultural heritage websites. It’s my obligation to guard them, for her,” he says.
Al-Duhdar is at current overseeing emergency works at Pasha Palace, a Thirteenth-century Mamluk-era landmark, because of funding from the Swiss-based Aliph Basis. The palace, which was restored by MOTA and transformed into an archaeological museum, was severely broken by an Israeli strike in 2024. The assault additionally killed the spouse and three kids of Sayed Abdulrazeq, a MOTA museum supervisor who had moved his household there to guard each the gathering and his family members, believing the museum could be shielded from army strikes beneath the 1954 Hague Conference. Abdulrazeq continues to work on cultural initiatives and help CCHP.
Lilja says preliminary inspection of the positioning revealed no indicators of the 60 or so packing containers of artefacts that had been saved there. A extra thorough investigation might be carried out because the rubble is cleared.
Palestinian patrimony
Whereas the US President Donald Trump has referred to as for others to rebuild Gaza, Palestinians assert they’re the one ones who can lead the trouble to protect their cultural patrimony. Balawi argues that Palestinians are uniquely dedicated to preserving their id via the rebuilding of their landmarks. Al-Duhdar agrees, including: “All over the world, together with the US, the indigenous individuals are the one individuals who can defend their cultural heritage.”
Sanne Letschert, the director of CER, acknowledges the issues of Palestinians and says the organisation stays dedicated to their Palestinian companions as they work to guard their heritage and lead their very own restoration. “There has lengthy been a reluctance to help heritage in Palestine, even earlier than current US remarks, making it more and more troublesome to mobilise funding in an already underfunded subject,” she says. “Whereas donor hesitation persists in some instances, it doesn’t deter Cultural Emergency Response.”
Letschert highlights that for the reason that conflict started, CER has earmarked €212,000 for 4 initiatives. They embrace helping heritage professionals and funding emergency works by CCHP on the 14th-century Younis Al-Nawruzi Fortress, which was severely broken in an Israeli air strike in 2024.
Following the discharge of the harm and evaluation report, Letschert says CER has outlined essentially the most pressing necessities and is actively working to safe funding to help these important efforts. “The urgency of defending heritage susceptible to disappearing makes this work extra important than ever,” she says.
Sandra Bialystok, Aliph’s director of communications and partnerships, says: “Earlier than launching full restoration initiatives, we’re ready to see how the present ceasefire evolves, but additionally to have a extra full image of the harm on website.”
Final 12 months, Aliph created a $1m emergency fund to help emergency efforts geared toward safeguarding Gaza’s heritage. Bialystok confirms the fund is now getting used to help initiatives on the bottom, together with stabilising the Nice Omari Mosque, Al-Saqqa Palace and the Dar-Farah historic courtyard.
Aliph can be supporting efforts to safe three necessary archaeological websites: the traditional website of Anthedon Harbour (Gaza’s first identified seaport, which can be on Unesco’s Tentative Heritage Listing), the Byzantine Church of Jabalia, and the Roman Cemetery, west of Jabalia, the place important archaeological artefacts have been found lately.
Fradley confirms that satellite tv for pc imagery exhibits destruction and heavy bombardment of buildings across the cemetery, together with heavy automobile visitors throughout the positioning. However he provides that, as with every archaeological website, the deposits that lie beneath the bottom should be intact.
The inclusion of Gaza’s historic city material on the 2025 World Monuments Watch in January is more likely to enhance consciousness and help for the enclave’s cultural heritage. It was one among 25 websites chosen from over 200 nominations for the programme, which highlights cultural heritage websites in danger.
The response to Gaza’s inclusion on the 2025 World Monuments Watch has been overwhelmingly constructive, based on Jonathan Bell, the vp of programmes on the World Monuments Fund (WMF). He says: “Gaza’s cultural legacy spans roughly 12,000 years, with heritage courting again to the Neolithic period (10,000 BCE) and a wealth of internationally recognised websites from Neo-Assyrian, Greek and Roman, Byzantine, Mamluk and Ottoman durations. The World Monuments Watch has helped spark necessary conversations in regards to the significance of all of this heritage and the necessity for lively safety now and considerate restoration as a part of any future restoration efforts.”
Bell confirms that WMF is working with companions, together with Riwaq, a Palestinian organisation for the preservation of architectural heritage, to assessment archival paperwork and set up pointers to protect Gaza’s historic character for future restoration efforts.
Nevertheless, whereas necessary knowledge gathering and safeguarding is underway, there may be rising concern over the shortage of authority. Fradley says: “Will it’s the Palestinian Authority? Will it’s Donald Trump? There’s no centralised level to which we might help truly feed this info again.”
