Israel destroys Gaza’s historical palace, with over 20,000 artifacts looted

• Over 316 archaeological sites, buildings destroyed by Israeli army in Gaza, according to official Palestinian data

GAZA CITY, Palestine / ISTANBUL

Gaza’s historical and cultural heritage has not been spared Israeli bombardment during Tel Aviv’s two-year war, with over 20,000 rare artifacts spanning from prehistoric eras to the Ottoman period missing and looted.

“The Israeli army has systematically and extensively destroyed Gaza’s archaeological sites as part of a policy aimed at erasing Palestinian identity,” Ismail al-Thawabteh, head of Gaza’s Government Media Office, told Anadolu on Monday.

According to official data, Israeli forces fully or partially destroyed more than 316 archaeological sites and buildings in the Gaza Strip, most dating back to the Mamluk and Ottoman eras, while others trace back to the early Islamic centuries and the Byzantine period.

Qasr al-Basha, a Mamluk-era palace built on a UNESCO heritage site dating back to 800 BC, was not spared from Israel’s systematic targeting of Gaza’s history.

Located in the Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City’s Old City, 70% of the Qasr al-Basha palace was damaged in Israeli attacks, according to Hamouda Al-Dahdar, a cultural heritage expert at the Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation in Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.

Looting

Technicians and workers continue searching for scattered artifacts under the rubble, using simple tools to recover and preserve what remains of Gaza’s historical identity.

“What happened to Gaza’s heritage was not only destruction; it was organized looting, a practice criminalized under international law and considered an assault on global cultural heritage,” Thawabteh said.

He added that over 20,000 rare artifacts spanning prehistoric eras to the Ottoman period housed in the museum had disappeared during the Israeli war.

Dahdar also confirmed the disappearance of thousands of rare and diverse artifacts after Israeli forces raided and destroyed the site.

“Each piece of these artifacts is historically significant and represents a chapter of Palestine’s civilizational history,” Dahdar said, calling the looting “a grave cultural crime that affects national identity and humanity’s shared heritage.”

The expert noted that the site had previously suffered extensive destruction during earlier Israeli military operations before its withdrawal in 1994.

After the Israeli withdrawal, the Palestinian Authority restored the palace and turned it into a museum featuring valuable historical collections.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967 and withdrew in 1994 under the 1993 Oslo Accords with the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In 2005, it dismantled its settlements in Gaza under its unilateral “Disengagement Plan.”

Once again, during the latest war that started in October 2023, the palace suffered destruction and the looting of its archaeological objects.

More than 69,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and over 170,700 others injured in the Israeli war that reduced the enclave to rubble.