“Beloved in Christ! We would like to inform you that the Church of St. Porfirius in Gaza is intact and inactive full serving society and our congregation. The news of his harm is false. We appreciate your concern for the safety of our church and people, and we ask you to pray for us" – a message about specified content was published on 9 October 2023 on church page on Facebook.
A minute earlier a rumor spread on social media that an orthodox church about the past of the 5th century was damaged during Israeli bombing. For a fewer more days, the media had been dementing these reports, but it shortly turned out that concerns about the safety of the temple were not unfounded and that in practice neither places of spiritual worship nor monuments are protected from the "right of Israel to self-defense", although theoretically protected by global law. The church of St. Porphyry was bombed 10 days later.
True, the building of the twelve-century temple, built by the Crusaders on the site of a much older Byzantine site, has preserved itself and the services are held in it continuously until today, but the demolition has affected the buildings belonging to the complex, serving as shelters for refugees. At least 1 of these buildings collapsed. 18 people died.
Gaza saw the birth and dusk of civilization
According to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA) data damaged or damaged There are more than half of the houses in Gaza and, in addition to the facilities essential for the endurance of the population, specified as hospitals or bakeries, places essential to the endurance of culture, including 392 educational institutions and 267 places of worship. The Gaza Strip is torn by bombs and missiles, digested by fires, driven by tanks, engravings and crushed by bulldozers. The demolition on a immense scale besides reaches valuable monuments. In order to realise how large a failure not only to Palestine, but to humanity in general, is the demolition of the material cultural heritage of Gaza, we must remember that it is 1 of the longest inhabited places on Earth. It was here that trade routes from Europe, Africa and Asia crossed for millennia. The Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Israelites, the Greeks, the Romans settled and fought for it, and in the seventh century C.E. the territory was occupied by Muslims. The land of Gaza inactive remains traces of this rich history.
At the end of April 2022, the planet media reported that during field work a farmer in Gaza He dug up a 4.5-year-old head of a Canaanite goddess Anat. A akin event 9 years earlier, erstwhile a Gazan fisherman fished out of the sea Apollo statue from bronze, inspired brothers arabian and Tarzan Nasser, a duo of movie makers from Gaza, to make a movie Gaza mon amour. In the fall of 2022, it was revealed discovery of Byzantine mosaics preserved in excellent condition – again the discoverer turned out to be a farmer, working in an olive grove in the Burejj exile camp.
The last archaeological discovery took place at the end of September last year – on the site of the Roman necropolis, where archaeological works continued, another 4 tombs discovered134 were found there. The treasures of this cemetery include (belonged?) unique, intricately decorated lead sarcophagus. His way was found just a year earlier, thanks to workers working on the construction of a fresh settlement. The current state of the Roman cemetery and finesse Byzantine mosaics not known. It is besides unknown how many archaeological objects were irretrievably lost before they existed in the consciousness of researchers.
What happened to another crucial archaeological objects is known. The remains of the Byzantine church of the 5th century in Jabalija, made available to research in 2022, after 3 years of renovation work, attended by the French Premiere Urgence Internationale and British Council, were destroyed in October. Israeli Bombs also damaged remains of the 4th century monastery of St. Hilarion. On December 18, UNESCO placed him on the list of cultural goods under peculiar protection. The excavation site was almost completely destroyed where Anthedon erstwhile existed, Gaza's first seaport. Its past dates back to 800 years B.C.E., it was a buying centre for nearly 2,000 years.
The 13th-century Pasha Palace, where it housed (placed?) the museum where the farmer's head of the goddess Anat was exhibited, the Israeli strike severely damaged on 11 December, partially destroyed were its walls, courtyard and gardens. another museums of the Gaza Strip besides had a akin fate. It is in Rafah which is the main museum of Palestinian heritage in the region has been razed to the ground inactive in October, as well as the Al-Qarara Museum in Chan Junis, founded in 2016 and collecting about 3,000 exhibits dating back to the time of the Canaanites. A tiny museum at the Mathaf Hotel in northern Gaza Israeli shelling damaged on November 3.
Cultural genocide?
The collection of historical artifacts besides owned Al-Isra University, occupied for more than 2 months by the Israeli army and utilized as barracks, and finally Blown up by her January 17 in controlled detonation. It is not known whether the collection was robbed by Israelis or destroyed with the building. This event raises concerns – at least – whether specified severe demolition in the tissue of cultural heritage is simply a side effect of war or part of the planned cultural genocide, although Israel evidently denies the deliberate attack on cultural goods.
Perhaps the most eloquent and captivating image of the alleged Israeli "cululicide" in Gaza is what is left of its most celebrated mosque. The large Mosque of Omar, the oldest and largest in Gaza, like the church of St. Porfirius, had a complicated history. First, the Philistine temple of Dagon stood in his place.
It is very possible that this is where the last evidence of Samson’s Bible past was played, which demolished it by digging under the rubble of the Philistines and itself. In the 5th century, a Byzantine basilica stood there, after a Muslim conquest transformed into a mosque. Then, during the reign of the Crusaders, he became the cathedral of John the Baptist, to return to the function of mosque during the reign of the Mameluks. Over the centuries, it was destroyed by armies and earthquakes, then rebuilt. He could accommodate 5,000 people praying, he was not only a place of worship, but besides a center of social life and 1 of the symbols of Gaza. He was bombed on December 8th., then was destroyed standing next to the mosque library, containing uncommon manuscripts. All that's left of the Grand Mosque present is fragments of walls and half a minaret.
November 7th, just a period after Israel began war in Gaza, a NGO Heritage for Peace published a report listing more than 1 100 cultural heritage sites which have been destroyed or damaged. 2 months later, in report from another organisation, ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), this number increased to 200 of all 325 specified facilities registered within the Zone.
The demolition of cultural goods in the Gaza Strip was 1 of Israel's actions, which South Africa referred to in its request to the global Court of Justice, Accusing Israel of committing genocide crimes. Israel is simply a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Goods in the event of armed conflict.
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Natalia Pitala – PhD in ecology, activist, educates on Palestinian issues in social media. He runs a blog Sad Orange and Instagram account @smutnapomarancza devoted to Palestinian literature and cinematography. He is presently working on a book on the ecological aspects of colonization and business of Palestine.
