War Lengthens Gaza's Scars... Volunteers Race Against Time to Save It

With a paintbrush, a young woman wearing surgical gloves carefully removes dust and impurities from a stone mosaic piece inside a tent in southern Gaza Strip, as part of efforts by volunteers to preserve cultural heritage affected by the Israeli war.

According to a report by Agence France-Presse, more than 160 historical and cultural sites were damaged during the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, according to the United Nations. Many of these archaeological sites date back thousands of years.

Visual artist Mohammed Abu Lihya, a volunteer in a heritage preservation campaign, says the war led to 'the loss of many paintings and mosaics, which were either completely or partially destroyed.'

He adds: 'It is important to revive this art, remind our children and community of it, and send a message to the world that we are attached to our heritage and our Palestinian cause.'

He continues: 'We care about mosaics and cultural heritage; we started our journey by rescuing and preserving artifacts and heritage pieces inherited from our ancestors over the historical periods that Palestine has gone through.'

The losses were not limited to archaeological treasures but also extended to contemporary pieces, also threatened by artillery shelling and Israeli airstrikes.

More than 90 percent of buildings in the Gaza Strip have suffered partial damage or total destruction during the war, according to the United Nations.

Gaza is distinguished by a rich historical heritage dating back centuries, as the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Ottomans left their mark, from ports and churches to mosques and archaeological artifacts.

Volunteers collect archaeological pieces, document them, and store them on wooden shelves in plastic containers inside a tent set up in Khan Younis in the southern Strip.

Inside the tent, Mohannad Abu Lihya, a cultural heritage guide at the Miassem Association for Culture and Arts, a non-governmental organization leading heritage preservation efforts, points to a stone piece and says: 'This stone is called a mortar, and it was used for grinding grains and herbs. It is about five thousand years old.'

Preserving the Past for the Future

At one of the tables, three women are arranging hundreds of small pieces to reassemble a contemporary mosaic, using a printed image of the original, while removing stone excess with carpenter pliers.

The volunteers insist on working to preserve their heritage despite lacking professional conservation equipment due to strict Israeli restrictions on goods entering the Gaza Strip.

Volunteers use regular paintbrushes and a primitive scanner consisting of a camera mounted above a box lined with black paper.

This device allows the digitization of old photos and paper documents before uploading them to a computer for archiving.

Many of these photos date back to the late Ottoman era, the British Mandate, and the Egyptian administration.

Taghreed Hejazi (29), a volunteer in the archives department, told Agence France-Presse while showing some of the documents she has: 'These are structural maps of Khan Younis from the British Mandate period. We have newspapers and documents from the British Mandate and the Egyptian era,' adding: 'We are working to preserve them from loss and damage.'

The volunteers say a large number of artifacts remain out of reach, located behind what is known as the 'Yellow Line' separating areas controlled by Hamas from those under Israeli army control.

Israel says it now controls more than 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, compared to about half the Strip when the ceasefire took effect last October.

But despite the volunteers' awareness of the difficulty of recovering these pieces, Hejazi confirms that 'efforts continue to preserve everything still within reach.'