For centuries, Gaza has stood at a crossroads of civilizations, linking Africa and Asia and serving as a meeting point for traders, pilgrims, and empires. The territory has been shaped by successive cultures and faiths, including pagan, Christian, and Islamic traditions, leaving behind a landscape of mosques, churches, archaeological sites, and historic buildings that reflect centuries of cultural exchange.
The Great Omari Mosque, for example, stands in the Old City of Gaza on a site that dates back nearly two millennia. When it became a mosque in the seventh century, the structure was built on land once home to a pagan temple and later a Byzantine church. Though the building has been damaged on numerous occasions since, Gaza’s oldest mosque—known for its octagonal minaret, rounded arches, and historical artifacts—continued to serve as a popular tourist destination and monument to cultural exchange and history.
To the west of Gaza City, near the coast, the Al-Mathaf Hotel—a seaside museum and cultural site—overlooked the Mediterranean, housing hundreds of artifacts, including tools, pottery, and coins, from various periods throughout Gaza’s history
Together, these places, along with countless other historic homes and shops, formed a living record of prayer, exchange, and everyday life. They survived centuries of change before meeting the violence of the present. But in 2023, many of these sites were damaged or destroyed by Israeli strikes, reducing centuries of memory to rubble. What was once a dense map of history has become a landscape of loss—one that extends from well-known landmarks to lesser-known sites such as Qasr al-Basha, or Pasha’s Palace, in the heart of Gaza City.
Using orbiting satellites and limited inspections on the ground, UNESCO is charting the scars of more than two years of war across Gaza’s ancient mosques and archaeological ruins. UNESCO has verified damage to 164 cultural sites in the enclave—among them fourteen religious sites, 128 historic or artistic buildings, three depositories, nine monuments, two museums, and eight archaeological sites. The Gaza Government Media Office (GGMO) put the number much higher, at more than 316 sites.
Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity constitutes a war crime. However, special intent is required to be proven to prosecute, making it difficult to halt attacks on cultural heritage. The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property also obligates parties to safeguard cultural sites during armed conflict, though enforcement remains limited.
According to UNESCO, 140 of the verified damaged cultural sites lie in Gaza City Governorate, the historic core of the territory and now the center of its cultural devastation. In the heart of Gaza City, Pasha’s Palace (named after an Ottoman governor), stood for nearly eight centuries, its stone walls bearing the imprint of successive empires from the Mamluk era (which lasted from 1250 to 1517, when the Ottomans took power) to the modern day. According to historical accounts, the palace even hosted Napoleon Bonaparte, who passed through Gaza during his 1799 campaign into the region. Israeli airstrikes and subsequent bulldozing during ground operations in the city left much of Pasha’s Palace in ruins, reducing its long history to fragments of stone and memory.
In a statement shared with The Progressive, the GGMO said the losses transcend shattered buildings. Thousands of artifacts were reported looted, especially after the Pasha’s Palace Museum—which held more than 20,000 rare objects spanning civilizations from antiquity to the Ottoman era—was stormed and destroyed.
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Hana Salah
A historic mechanical device exhibited inside Pasha’s Palace Museum, one of many artifacts documenting everyday life across different eras, December 2021.
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A mosaic panel displayed inside Pasha’s Palace Museum in Gaza City, December 2021.
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Jewelry and personal adornments from the late Islamic period displayed at Pasha’s Palace Museum, part of a collection that once traced centuries of life in Gaza, December 2021.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director general of Gaza’s Government Media Office, describes the looting and destruction as “cultural war crimes” by Israel that target historical and religious landmarks documenting centuries of Palestinian presence.
“What has happened to Gaza’s archaeological sites is not limited to physical destruction,” Al-Thawabta says, “but includes organized looting, an act that breaches international law and undermines global cultural heritage.”
The losses in Gaza City stretch from Anthedon Harbour on the Mediterranean coast to the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza City; from the Church of Saint Porphyrios to the Holy Family Church. Museums, the Hamam al-Samra Turkish bathhouses, markets, and cinemas have also been affected, along with dozens of historic homes and shops. Archaeological mounds such as Tell el-Ajjul, Tell Es-Sakan, and Tell al-Muntar, where traces of ancient civilizations were layered into the earth, have joined the list. What was once a dense map covering different faiths, eras, and signs of everyday life has been reduced to a catalogue of wounds and interrupted stories.
In Rafah, a city in southern Gaza, the recently destroyed artifacts date back to the beginnings of settlement itself. UNESCO confirmed damage to Tell Rafah, an archaeological mound shaped by generations of human movement across Gaza’s southern edge. Long before the creation of borders and modern wars, the site bore witness to migration, exchange, and survival. Its damage narrows what can still be read from the ground, turning an ancient archive of soil and stone into another casualty of the present conflict. Near the coast in Deir al-Balah, two places of memory and craftsmanship were found to be damaged: the Deir El Balah War Cemetery in Az-Zawaida and the al-Bureij Mosaic. One holds the quiet testimony of a more recent past; the other preserves a language of color and stone from a far older one. In Khan Yunis, UNESCO verified damage to Qal‘at Barqouq, a fortress from the Mamluk era, and to the Abasan mosaics, intricate artworks embedded directly into floors and walls, fragments of an artistic tradition once set in the land itself.
Across the entire enclave, the losses bind distant centuries together, collapsing medieval walls and ancient patterns into the same moment of destruction.
In Iran, where a civilization stretching back thousands of years has shaped human culture across continents, dozens of heritage sites now also bear the scars of war. Since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran escalated in February, the Iranian Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts reported that at least fifty-six museums, monuments, and historic landmarks have been damaged in recent strikes.
The Golestan Palace in Tehran, Iran, has stood for centuries at the heart of the Iranian capital as a symbol of royal power and artistic achievement. One of Iran’s most iconic landmarks, the complex is the historic seat of the Qajar dynasty (which ruled from the 1780s to 1925) and known for its mirrored halls, intricate tilework, and fusion of Persian and European architectural styles. The palace, which is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site, has long reflected Iran’s cultural evolution. In March, shockwaves and debris from nearby U.S.-Israeli airstrikes targeting the surrounding Arg Square shattered the site’s windows, damaged its famed glasswork, and left parts of the complex strewn with debris.
The war has pushed Gaza’s economy to the point of collapse: The overall economy now stands at only 13 percent of its size in 2022. Mutasim Elagraa, a senior economist who coordinates the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development’s program supporting the Palestinian people, says the downturn is so severe that it has erased decades of progress.
“The collapse is so profound that it has set Gaza back more than seventy years in terms of human development,” Elagraa says. “Multidimensional poverty now engulfs all Gazans.”
The destruction of heritage sites has been especially devastating for the tourism and cultural economy in Gaza, which once supported thousands of families.
Al-Thawabta says the war has destroyed 85 percent of Gaza’s tourism facilities and damaged another 10 percent. That amounts to $2 billion in losses to the tourism, hotel, and leisure sectors, leaving more than 7,000 people without work. Al-Thawabta says the damage goes beyond economics.
“What is being erased,” he says, “is not only livelihoods related to heritage, but Gaza’s image as a place of history and culture—[which is] part of a broader effort to isolate it from the world.”
With government and international efforts failing to adequately protect what remains of Gaza’s archaeological sites—due to ongoing war, restricted access to essential materials and equipment needed for preservation work, and the difficulty of enforcing international protections—non-governmental initiatives have begun stepping in to fill the gap.
In November, the Palestinian Center for Cultural Heritage Preservation (CCHP) launched emergency interventions to stabilize and protect damaged historic landmarks, such as Pasha’s Palace, with support from international partners, including the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage.
In a statement shared with The Progressive, CCHP said its emergency work includes clearing debris, recovering original stones and architectural elements, and storing them for future restoration. The organization said the aim is to preserve Gaza’s cultural heritage amid the absence of effective protection mechanisms.
Built during the Mamluk period, Pasha’s Palace has sustained an estimated 70 percent structural damage, according to the CCHP restoration team. The organization is continuing restoration work in the palace courtyard to preserve surviving architectural features and material.
“The palace’s museum once contained artifacts from the Byzantine, Roman, and Islamic periods,” says Hammoud Al-Daghdar, a cultural heritage expert. “Current efforts are focused on salvaging what can still be saved from this historical legacy.”
Amid collapsed walls and looted artifacts, local and international heritage workers continue to salvage what can be saved, insisting that Gaza’s history will not vanish quietly beneath the rubble. What is being destroyed is not only civilian and military targets, but the shared memory of humanity, erased in the wake of modern warfare.