How Gaza’s history and culture are being erased by Israel’s war
Mass in the Church of Saint Porphyrius, Gaza City, on 7 January 2013. The Church compound was bombed on 19 October 2023
Alessandra Bajec writes in The New Arab:
In late November, intense Israeli shelling destroyed Gaza City’s Central Archive Building, which contained thousands of historical documents dating back over 150 years.
“These documents represent an integral part of our history and culture,” the mayor of Gaza, Yahya Al-Sarraj, said following the incident, highlighting their historical value for the community.
Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank posted photos from inside the heavily damaged municipal building. “The Israeli occupation destroys the central archive of Gaza municipality, executing thousands of historical documents, and deliberately razing all life forms; erasing the city and its history. It is worth noting that the archive holds documents more than a hundred years old,” it said.
The papers housed within the archives held important national records dating back generations and information documenting the history of Gaza and its people, along with plans for Gaza City’s urban development.
“They are targeting our heritage, it’s really scary. We have hundreds of years of history, more than the age of the Israeli state, and they want to obliterate the memory of the place local people belong to.” “It seems like a continuation of what started in 1948, when historical documents were lost, then the looting of the PLO archive in Beirut during the Israeli invasion in 1982,” Khalil Sayegh, a Palestinian political analyst born and raised in the Gaza Strip, told The New Arab.
Israel’s war on Gaza has had an immense human cost, with nearly 20,000 Palestinians killed, 70% of them women and children. But it has also destroyed numerous historic and cultural buildings such as archaeological sites, museums, cultural centres, markets, ancient churches, and mosques.
Key religious sites struck by airstrikes since Israel’s war began include the Great Omari Mosque, one of the oldest and most important mosques in historical Palestine, that was destroyed – with only its ancient minaret standing – and the bombing of the Church of Saint Porphyrius, which was originally founded in 425 CE.