---
title: "Palestinian archaeologists race to save Gaza’s heritage, Al Jazeera reports"
description: "A Palestinian team has rescued more than 1,700 artefacts from damaged museum collections but lacks a place to store them"
author: "rews desk"
published: 2026-09-30T13:45:56Z
modified: 2026-09-30T17:13:09Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/palestinian-archaeologists-race-to-save-gaza-s-heritage-al-j-c0225c
language: en
tags: ["gaza", "archaeology", "heritage", "war", "mideast"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Palestinian archaeologists race to save Gaza’s heritage, Al Jazeera reports

*A Palestinian team has rescued more than 1,700 artefacts from damaged museum collections but lacks a place to store them*

By rews desk · September 30, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/palestinian-archaeologists-race-to-save-gaza-s-heritage-al-j-c0225c

## In brief

- UNESCO counts at least 164 cultural sites damaged in Gaza between October 2023 and March 2026
- A Palestinian team has rescued more than 1,700 artefacts from four museum collections, Al Jazeera reported
- The team documents, cleans, archives and photographs finds but lacks a secure place to store them

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.