Gaza (UNA/WAFA) – Two years after the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, deeper signs of one of the most prominent forms of cultural genocide in modern times are becoming clearer. The destruction has not been limited to buildings or physical infrastructure, but has extended to collective memory, national identity, and the cultural landscape in all its components.
Libraries were burned, museums were destroyed, cultural centers and institutions were razed to the ground, and institutions of memory, education, and the arts were reduced to rubble. This scene reflects a systematic targeting of the Palestinian cultural and cognitive infrastructure and indicates a deliberate attempt to erase the history and cultural identity of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian National Library has documented the devastation inflicted on the cultural heritage of the Gaza Strip during the two-year war, which left widespread destruction, resulting in more than 67 deaths and approximately 170 injuries. The infrastructure, including cultural landmarks, educational and artistic institutions, suffered comprehensive destruction that affected the very essence of cultural life in the Strip.
Strategies of obliteration and identity theft
The occupation authorities are pursuing systematic strategies to obliterate Palestinian culture and strip it of its identity. These measures are not merely side effects of the conflict, but rather represent a strategic policy whose roots extend back to before 1948.
These strategies fall within broader policies aimed at targeting the intellectual and cultural foundations of Palestinian society in order to weaken it from within, destabilize social ties, and undermine its national identity.
In this context, the occupation's targeting of cultural, artistic, and educational centers, as well as archaeological and religious landmarks in the Gaza Strip, is a tool to achieve clear political objectives.
These centers are not merely spaces for creativity and thought, but rather constitute key tools for expressing collective memory and society's resilience in the face of the occupation's attempts to reshape identity.
Thus, the destruction of these institutions undermines a society's ability to preserve and transmit its cultural heritage to future generations, and allows the occupation to impose its hegemony and control over the people by erasing their national heritage and emptying it of its cultural and political meaning.
Manifestations of cultural genocide
The cultural and historical heritage of the Gaza Strip faces grave danger as a result of war, destruction, and systematic cultural genocide, which leads to the Israeli occupation's efforts to erase Palestinian identity and history and diminish the ability of future generations to access their history. The occupation has targeted the cultural infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, including cultural centers, museums, theaters, exhibitions, historical and archaeological landmarks, public, private, and university libraries, school libraries, mosques, churches, publishing houses, printing presses, and ministries.
The destruction affected a wealth of rare books, manuscripts, historical documents, private and administrative archives, audio-visual materials, equipment, manual and electronic preservation methods, land registry records, civil records, and historical collectibles and artifacts.
The Israeli war machine targeted all museums in the Gaza Strip, most notably the National Museum in the Pasha Palace, a Mamluk monument that was converted into a museum in 2010 and housed tens of thousands of artifacts. The museum also included the Deir al-Balah Museum, which is affiliated with the city's municipality, the Rafah Museum, the Qarara Museum, the Hotel Museum, and other museums whose collections were destroyed or stolen by occupation soldiers, who photographed them after transferring them to Israeli museums.
The Gaza Strip also witnessed a cultural genocide during the recent Israeli aggression, as the Israeli war machine destroyed dozens of public, private, university, and historical libraries, in addition to printing presses and publishing houses, most notably:
The library of the Great Omari Mosque, which contains (230) rare historical manuscripts, was bombed and burned, and only 38 manuscripts remain.
The Gaza Library of Culture and Light, affiliated with the Baptist Church, which contained (20,000) books, was bombed.
Palestinian university libraries that were not spared from the bombing, such as Al-Aqsa University Library, Al-Isra University Library, and the Islamic University Library, which lost more than (240,000) books and references.
Municipal libraries and cultural institutions, including the Gaza Municipal Library, the Khan Yunis Municipal Library, the Diana Tamari Sabbagh Library, and the Haidar Abdel Shafi Library, which housed tens of thousands of books before their destruction.
The destruction also affected the central archives in Gaza, which contain ancient buildings and historical documents dating back more than 150 years, in addition to the city’s central archives, maps, engineering studies, and control and monitoring circuits for water wells and sewage networks.
In addition to the occupation forces' control over the Gaza antiquities warehouse, the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority published photos of himself and his team from the warehouse, which contains thousands of artifacts dating back to periods ranging from 3 years BC to the seventh and eighth centuries AD and even the beginning of the early Islamic era.
Dozens of cultural centers and theaters were also destroyed, including the Rashad Shawa Cultural Center, the largest cultural center in the Gaza Strip, which houses historical documents, books, and maps; the Orthodox Cultural Center; the Hakawi Theater Association; the Al-Wedad Theater Association; and others.
The destruction extended to hundreds of historical buildings, as no less than (226) archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip were damaged, including the destruction of the historic Beit al-Saqa, which dates back to the Ottoman period, Beit Sabat al-Ilmi, which dates back to the seventeenth century AD, the Camellia School, and the Samra Bath, which was the last Ottoman bath in Gaza. The Baptist Hospital, a historical building built in 1882, and the Balakhiya Port were also bombed, in addition to targeting the Tell al-Ajul site, which represents the history of Gaza in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, and the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, which was subjected to an air raid that led to the destruction of part of it, and it is one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East.
In addition to the occupation’s bombing with guided missiles of four ancient churches that are considered important cultural symbols in Palestine, including the Church of St. Porphyrius, the oldest church in Gaza and the third oldest church in the world, the Baptist Church and its hospital, and the bombing and destruction of more than (1000) mosques, completely or partially, including the Omari Mosque in Gaza, which is one of the most important and oldest mosques in historical Palestine, the Sayyid Hashim Mosque, and the ancient Othman Qashqar Mosque, it also completely destroyed (8) cemeteries, including the bulldozing of the Beit Hanoun cemetery and the exhumation of (600) graves in it, and the Roman cemetery, which dates back to about 2000 years, and which included a group of coffins made of lead, and the Deir al-Balah cemetery, which dates back to the late Bronze Age.
The occupation’s targeting of the educational sector and all its components in Gaza is one of the most prominent manifestations of the ongoing war. About (18 thousand male and female students), (1500) university students, (750) male and female teachers, and more than (230) university professors were martyred. Schools, universities, and kindergartens were greatly affected by the bombing and destruction, which led to the disruption of studies and damage to the educational infrastructure since the beginning of the war. About 95% of schools and universities were damaged, and thus more than (650) thousand male and female students were deprived of education.
The targeting of academics, artists, scientists, and journalists during the war represents a serious threat to the future of Palestinian society in Gaza. These individuals hold intellectual and cultural knowledge and expertise that foster growth and progress, and the loss of their intellectual, media, and artistic platforms and tools due to genocide and displacement could weaken the cultural and scientific infrastructure.
Since the beginning of the war of extermination, the Israeli war machine has killed more than (150) scientists, academics, university professors and researchers, in addition to the martyrdom of about 254 journalists, and the martyrdom of dozens of writers, poets and artists.
In addition to the loss of artworks kept by their owners in their destroyed homes, many of Gaza's famous handicraft workshops and shops were damaged, including embroidery, ceramics, pottery, and bamboo. These crafts are an integral part of the cultural heritage and national identity, as well as a primary source of income for many Gazans.
In light of the ongoing war for two years, the cultural situation in the Gaza Strip is facing challenges in rebuilding the cultural landscape and resuming cultural activities. These challenges include the difficulty of recovering lost or stolen artifacts, the loss of human resources that formed the backbone of these institutions due to martyrdom, displacement, or migration, and the lack of security and the disruption of infrastructure, which hinders any efforts at reconstruction. Furthermore, there are challenges in coordinating with international and local donors, and international institutions' reliance on remote monitoring of satellite images to assess damage, given the impossibility of conducting a field assessment under the current circumstances.
The National Library calls on the international community to provide protection for Palestinian cultural heritage in the Gaza Strip, based on the principle that cultural property and objects belong to all of humanity, and that any attack on them constitutes an attack on all peoples of the world. It also calls for adherence to the 1954 Hague Convention, which prohibits the destruction or damage to cultural heritage in armed conflict.
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