A team of Palestinian archaeologists is rescuing artefacts from damaged museums in Gaza but has no secure place to store what it saves, Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday.
At least 164 cultural sites in Gaza were damaged between October 2023 and March 2026, according to UNESCO, in what Al Jazeera described as an apparent attempt to erase the Palestinian enclave’s cultural heritage alongside Israel’s military campaign.
The team has so far recovered more than 1,700 historical pieces from four museum collections, Shaimaa Mohammad al-Natour, assistant coordinator of the programme, told Al Jazeera. The team works with local and displaced residents who find artefacts in the rubble.
We handle notifications by first filling out a comprehensive survey containing the informant’s details, the artefact’s location, and its condition. The team then heads to the site to rescue the items, after which the processing stages begin: cleaning, archiving and photography.
Al-Natour described the process to Al Jazeera. The central question now, the outlet reported, is where the recovered objects can be stored.
Gaza’s archaeological record covers thousands of years, and other recovery efforts at war-damaged heritage sites have been hampered by Israeli restrictions on building materials, according to earlier reporting by the BBC.