{"id":27815,"date":"2025-11-17T18:04:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T18:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=27815"},"modified":"2025-11-17T18:04:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T18:04:25","slug":"israel-destroys-gazas-historical-palace-with-over-20000-artifacts-looted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=27815","title":{"rendered":"Israel destroys Gaza\u2019s historical palace, with over 20,000 artifacts looted"},"content":{"rendered":"
Gaza\u2019s historical and cultural heritage has not been spared Israeli bombardment during Tel Aviv\u2019s two-year war, with over 20,000 rare artifacts spanning from prehistoric eras to the Ottoman period missing and looted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Israeli army has systematically and extensively destroyed Gaza\u2019s archaeological sites as part of a policy aimed at erasing Palestinian identity,\u201d Ismail al-Thawabteh, head of Gaza\u2019s Government Media Office, told Anadolu on Monday.<\/p>\n

Also Read: Pakistan, Jordan to coordinate on Gaza peace plan<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Qasr al-Basha, a Mamluk-era palace built on a UNESCO heritage site dating back to 800 BC, was not spared from Israel\u2019s systematic targeting of Gaza\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Located in the Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Looting<\/p>\n

Technicians and workers continue searching for scattered artifacts under the rubble, using simple tools to recover and preserve what remains of Gaza\u2019s historical identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened to Gaza\u2019s heritage was not only destruction; it was organized looting, a practice criminalized under international law and considered an assault on global cultural heritage,\u201d Thawabteh said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Dahdar also confirmed the disappearance of thousands of rare and diverse artifacts after Israeli forces raided and destroyed the site.<\/p>\n

Also Read: UNSC to vote Monday on Trump Gaza plan<\/p>\n

\u201cEach piece of these artifacts is historically significant and represents a chapter of Palestine\u2019s civilizational history,\u201d Dahdar said, calling the looting \u201ca grave cultural crime that affects national identity and humanity\u2019s shared heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The expert noted that the site had previously suffered extensive destruction during earlier Israeli military operations before its withdrawal in 1994.<\/p>\n

After the Israeli withdrawal, the Palestinian Authority restored the palace and turned it into a museum featuring valuable historical collections.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cDisengagement Plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once again, during the latest war that started in October 2023, the palace suffered destruction and the looting of its archaeological objects.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gaza\u2019s historical and cultural heritage has not been spared Israeli bombardment during Tel Aviv\u2019s two-year war, with over 20,000 rare artifacts spanning from prehistoric eras to the Ottoman period missing and looted. \u201cThe Israeli army has systematically and extensively destroyed Gaza\u2019s archaeological sites as part of a policy aimed at erasing Palestinian identity,\u201d Ismail al-Thawabteh, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}