In September 2025, the US announced a multilateral agreement between Israel and Hamas towards peace, with the hope to end two years of brutal war from October 7th 2023, including the trauma of Israelis following the attack of military bases, massacring civilians from 21 communities and taking hostages; and the devastation of Gaza and severe suffering inflicted upon Palestinians. The collective trauma and tragic human cost of the war on both sides is well-documented. So too is the destruction of millennia of cultural, archaeological and living heritage. This heritage is at the heart of what gives people, communities and groups a sense of identity, belonging and place. It is woven into our ways of life and livelihoods, our stories, our arts, our landscapes.
Gaza and the West Bank—now recognised by the UK as the State of Palestine—form one of the oldest cultural corridors in the eastern Mediterranean, a landscape shaped by more than five millennia of trade, migration, urban life, and imperial encounters. Gaza, in particular, appears in written records from the second millennium BCE as a Canaanite settlement, but its significance extends far beyond its earliest mentions. As a key node at the intersection of Africa, Asia, and the wider Levant, it served as a crossroads for caravan routes, maritime exchange, and the geopolitical ambitions of ancient empires across what is often termed the “Cradle of Civilisation.”
Successive civilisations left their imprint on the region’s cities, landscapes, and cultural traditions: Egyptians, Philistines, Assyrians, Persians, and later Greeks and Romans, whose influence intensified after Alexander the Great’s siege in 332 BCE. Through the Islamic era—Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk—and into the Ottoman period, Gaza and the highlands of the West Bank were woven into major commercial, religious, and intellectual networks. By the time of the British Mandate, the region had sown a uniquely rich, layered heritage: a palimpsest of Canaanite, classical, Islamic, and early modern traditions. This deep cultural continuity makes the heritage of Palestine central to understanding the wider history of the Levant.
With such deep roots, the Gaza Strip—and Gaza City in particular—is one of the most archaeologically rich areas of the eastern Mediterranean. Although foreign scholars, explorers, and archaeologists have worked in the region since the 19th century, systematic local stewardship is more recent: the Gaza Antiquities Service was established in the mid-1990s, marking the first coordinated, locally led effort to document, protect, and interpret Gaza’s heritage. Since then, major discoveries—ranging from Canaanite layers to Roman mosaics and early Islamic architecture—have illuminated the long development of the region. While only one site, the Monastery of Saint Hilarion (Tell Umm Amer), is currently inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, two others are on the Tentative List, and many more clearly merit future consideration.
The conflict has caused devastating damage to this heritage, with reports of destroyed sites and urgent efforts to safeguard artefacts from museums and storerooms. As stability returns, the extent of these losses—and the work required to conserve what remains—will become clearer.
RESCUE Says:
As RESCUE highlighted previously, tangible and intangible heritage, including archaeology, are often either an intended or collateral casualty of war. While full on-the-ground verification is very difficult, hundreds of these losses have been documented by UNESCO, Palestinian authorities, NGOs, and independent researchers. As of October 2025, UNESCO verified damage to 114 sites since 7 October – 13 religious sites, 81 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 3 depositories of movable cultural property, 9 monuments, 1 museum and 7 archaeological sites; a report from the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities indicates over 200 sites. These include the destruction of the Great Omari Mosque and its collection of rare and ancient books; St. Porphyrios Orthodox Church, the oldest church in Gaza, and Tell el-‘Ajjul, an ancient archaeological mound dating back to the 3rd millennium BCE. These high-profile sites represent just a fraction of an appalling catalogue of heritage destruction. And the scale is not just physical; it’s also a loss to collective memory, identity and cultural continuity – not only for Palestinians but for all of us. Today, news emerges that in the West Bank, olive groves – central to Palestinian cultural identity and agricultural heritage – are being destroyed in some areas, undermining livelihoods on top of erasing centuries of traditional land use and associated cultural practices. Intentional acts of damage constitute an assault on the tangible and intangible heritage of a people, threatening the continuity of local communities and their historic connection to the land. Cultural legacies play an important part in post-war reconstruction.
In the spirit of the 1954 Hague Convention and the Rome Statute of the ICC, RESCUE calls on the international community to:
- condemn the targeting of cultural heritage, including agricultural landscapes with cultural significance;
- continue support of UNESCO, ICOMOS, and local heritage authorities to monitor, document, and report damage in real time;
- Allocate emergency funding for the protection, stabilisation, and eventual restoration of damaged sites and support local communities whose cultural and agricultural practices are threatened, ensuring heritage preservation goes hand-in-hand with livelihood protection.
Refs:
A Rush to Save Ancient Artifacts in Gaza Highlights All That Has Been Lost – The New York Times
The frantic race to protect historic treasures from Israeli bombs – BBC News
Destruction of cultural heritage during the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip – Wikipedia
‘One of the oldest urban centres on the planet’: Gaza’s rich history in ruins | Gaza | The Guardian
https://www.archaeologs.com/n/226-archaeological-sites-damaged-in-gaza-amid-ongoing-conflict
https://www.unesco.org/en/gaza/assessment
https://www.icomos.org/communique/icomos-press-release-on-the-situation-in-gaza-and-israel
https://www.icomos.org/actualite/icomos-statement-on-gaza-and-the-west-bank
https://www.unesco.org/en/gaza/assessment
https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-supports-culture-sector-gaza-strip
