Priceless archaeological artifacts in Gaza saved in frantic rescue

JERUSALEM (AP) — Nine hours of frantic negotiation with the Israeli military. A last-minute scramble to find trucks in a devastated Gaza Strip, where fuel is in short supply. Six hours of frantic packing, carefully stacking cardboard boxes on open flatbed trucks.

With an Israeli airstrike looming, aid workers carried out a last-minute rescue mission to salvage thousands of priceless artifacts from a Gaza warehouse before the building was flattened.

The warehouse contained artifacts from over 25 years of excavations, including items from a 4th-century Byzantine monastery designated as a World Heritage Site by the U.N. cultural organization UNESCO, and some of the oldest known evidence of Christianity in Gaza. The Israeli military said the building housed Hamas intelligence installations and planned to demolish it as part of their expanded military operation in Gaza City.

“It’s not just about Palestinian heritage or Christian heritage, it’s something important to the world heritage here, protected by UNESCO,” explained Kevin Charbel, the emergency field coordinator for Première Urgence Internationale (PUI), a humanitarian organization which has worked in Gaza since 2009. PUI is a health organization that also works toward the protection of Gaza’s cultural heritage.

Negotiating against the clock

COGAT, Israel’s defense body in charge of humanitarian aid, notified PUI of the demolition plan last Wednesday morning. The warning was triggered by a notification system managed by the international NGOS to let the Israeli military know that a specific area is a sensitive site such as a school, hospital, or warehouses holding humanitarian aid.

Charbel, who is based in Gaza City on a temporary humanitarian rotation, spent nine hours furiously negotiating with the Israeli military for a delay to allow workers to move the artifacts to a safer location. But the challenge was larger than just holding off the military. As Israel expands its operation in Gaza City, other organizations were in disarray, and no one could locate trucks to transport the artifacts at such short notice.

“Five minutes before I had to accept this was going to be evaporated in front of us, another actor offered us transport,” said Charbel. PUI worked with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem to move the artifacts to a safer location in Gaza City that is not being disclosed for security reasons.

The French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF), a venerated archaeological institution in the region which oversaw the Dead Sea Scrolls excavation in Israel, was responsible for the storage of about 80 square meters (860 sq ft) of archaeological artifacts in the Al-Kawthar high-rise building in Gaza City. PUI was providing security for the site.

Dozens of ancient archaeological sites have been found in Gaza, including temples, monasteries, palaces, churches, mosques and mosaics. Many of them have been lost to urban sprawl and looting. UNESCO is struggling to preserve some of those that remain. Some of the sites date back 6,000 years, when Gaza was a central stop on trade routes between Egypt and the Levant, and the emergence of urban societies began to transform farming villages.

The artifacts rescued this week include ceramic jugs, mosaics, coins, painted plasterwork, human and animal remains, and items excavated from the Saint Hilarion Monastery, one of the oldest known examples of Christian monastic communities in the Middle East, according to UNESCO.

No time for normal preparation

Starting just after sunrise on Thursday, workers rushed to pack five flatbed trucks with as many delicate artifacts as they possibly could in the space of six hours. Artifacts, which had been carefully stored and documented in the warehouse, were hurriedly packed in cardboard boxes, with nearly 2,000-year-old pottery resting on the sandy ground.

Charbel noted that transporting such old artifacts usually requires intense preparation and special provisions to protect delicate objects, something that wasn’t possible in this instance. The Israeli military does not allow the use of closed container trucks, exposing the artifacts to additional dangers. Several items were broken en route and others had to be left behind. Israel destroyed the building on Sunday, claiming Hamas had positioned observation posts and intelligence-gathering infrastructure within it.

Over the past week, Israel has demolished multiple high-rise buildings in Gaza City, part of its dramatic warnings to civilians to evacuate ahead of the ground offensive, which began on Tuesday morning.

As Israel’s ground operation expands, the artifacts are being held in a different location in Gaza City. However, they are outside, exposed to the elements, and remain in grave danger as strikes intensify.

UNESCO said Israel has damaged at least 110 cultural sites across the Gaza Strip, including 13 religious sites, 77 buildings of historical or artistic interest, one museum, and seven archaeological sites, since the beginning of the war in October 2023.

During the archaeological rescue, Charbel said, he and other aid workers also wrestled with deeper questions. Did it make sense to direct so many resources, including desperately needed fuel and trucks, risking the lives of multiple people who worked under constant threat of bombardment, for inanimate historical objects, when the humanitarian situation is so dire? Charbel said he was worried about spending so much time arguing over the archaeological artifacts when they also needed to negotiate with COGAT about life-saving water, food, and medicine.

“But we accepted to do this, because it’s so valuable, this stuff, it’s of such importance to world history and also Palestinian history,” said Charbel. “Destroying early examples of Christian history in Palestine would erase it forever.”