by Gaza’s ancient Greek site of Anthedon was bombed, its “Napoleon’s Palace” destroyed and the only private museum burned: the war has had a terrible impact on the rich heritage of the Palestinian territory.
But in a strange twist of fate, some of his best historical treasures are safe in a warehouse in Switzerland.
And ironically, the blockade has made life in the Gaza Strip such a struggle for the past 16 years.
Based on satellite images, the UN cultural organization estimates that around 41 historical sites have been damaged since Israel began striking the besieged territory following the Hamas attack on October 7.
On the ground, Palestinian archaeologist Fadel al-Otol keeps tabs on the destruction in real time.
When he has electricity and internet access, photos pour into a WhatsApp group he set up with 40 or so young colleagues he mobilized to see the territory’s wide range of ancient sites and monuments.
As a teenager in the 1990s, Otol was employed by European archaeological missions before going on to study in Switzerland and at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
“All the archaeological remains in the north have been hit,” he told AFP by phone from Gaza.
The human toll from the October 7 Hamas attack is chilling.
A total of 1,170 people were killed in the unprecedented raid on Israel, according to AFP tallies of official Israeli figures.
Nearly 34,000 have died in Gaza due to relentless Israeli shelling, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The history of Gaza has also been greatly damaged.
– Napoleon’s HQ flattened –
“Blakhiya (the ancient Greek city of Anthedon) was bombed directly. There is a huge hole”, said Otol.
He said that part of the site, near the Hamas barracks “we haven’t started digging”, was hit.
The Al-Basha palace from the 13th century in the old town of Gaza City “has been completely destroyed. It was bombed and (then) it was bulldozed.
“There were hundreds of ancient objects and amazing sarcophagi,” Otol said as he shared recent photos of the ruins.
Napoleon is said to have established himself in the ocher stone building at the disastrous end of his campaign in Egypt in 1799.
The room where the French emperor slept was apparently full of Byzantine artefacts.
“The best results we had were shown in the Basha,” Jean-Baptiste Humbert of the French School of Bible and Archeology in Jerusalem (EBAF) told AFP.
But we know very little about their fate, he said. “Did someone get the things out before the building blew up?”
Nerves were further aggravated when the director of Israel’s Antiquities, Eli Escusido, posted a video on Instagram of Israeli soldiers surrounded by ancient vases and pottery in the EBAF warehouse in Gaza City.
Much of what was found in excavations in Gaza was stored at the Al-Basha museum or in the warehouse.
Palestinians quickly accused the army of pillaging. But EBAF archaeologist Rene Elter said he had seen no evidence of a “looting state”.
“My colleagues were able to return to the site. The soldiers opened boxes. We do not know if they took anything,” he told AFP.
However, he said: “Every day Fadel (al-Otol) calls me, I’m afraid he will tell me that one of our colleagues has died or that such a site has been destroyed”.
Archeology is a highly political issue in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and discoveries are often used to defend the claims of the two warring communities.
Although Israel has an army of archaeologists who have discovered a large number of ancient treasures, Gaza remains haunted despite a rich history stretching back thousands of years.
– Ancient crossroads –
The only sheltered natural bay between the Sinai and Lebanon, Gaza has been a crossroads of civilization for centuries.
A pivot point between Africa and Asia and the hub of the incense trade, it was famous for the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and Ottomans.
A key person who has been excavating this glorious history for the past two decades is Jawdat Khoudary, a director and collector of buildings from Gaza.
Gaza, with its “waterfront real estate”, experienced a property boom in the 1990s following the Oslo peace accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority.
When construction workers dug up the soil, they came across lots and lots of ancient things. Khoudary collected a treasure of artefacts which he opened to foreign archaeologists.
Marc-Andre Haldimann, then curator of the MAH, Geneva’s museum of art and history, could not believe his eyes when he was invited to look around the garden of the Khoudary mansion in 2004.
“We found ourselves in front of 4,000 objects, including an avenue of Byzantine columns,” he told AFP.
An idea quickly came to organize a major exhibition to highlight the history of Gaza at the MAH, and then to build a museum in the territory itself so that the Palestinians could take ownership of their own heritage.
At the end of 2006, some 260 objects from the Khoudary collection left Gaza for Geneva, and several others will go on to be part of another winning show at the Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA) in Paris.
But geopolitics changed along the way. In June 2007, Hamas drove the Palestinian Authority from Gaza. And Israel enforced its blockade.
As a result, the Gazan artefacts could no longer return home and remained stuck in Geneva, and the archaeological museum project ended.
But Khoudary did not give up hope. He built a museum called Al-Mathaf, a museum in Arabic, on the Mediterranean coast north of Gaza City.
But then came the Israeli offensive ground after the Hamas attack on October 7, which began in northern Gaza.
– ‘Nothing but a black hole’ –
“Al-Mathaf remained under Israeli control for months,” Khoudary, who fled Gaza to Egypt, told AFP. “As soon as they left, I asked some people to go there to see what the state of the place was. I was surprised. Some things were missing and the hall was set on fire.
His mansion was also destroyed during fierce fighting in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City.
“The Israelis made the garden together with bulldozers… I don’t know if objects were placed (by the bulldozers) or if the marble columns were broken or damaged. I can’t find words,” he said.
The Israeli military did not comment on specific locations. But he accused Hamas of systematically using civilian structures such as cultural heritage sites, government buildings, schools, shelters and hospitals for military purposes.
“Israel maintains its commitments to international law, including by providing the necessary special safeguards,” the army said in a statement.
Although part of Khoudary’s collection has been lost, the treasures held by Switzerland remain intact, saved by the blockade and red tape that delayed their return.
“There were 106 crates ready to go” for many years, said Beatrice Blandin, the current curator of the MAH museum.
Safely far from the raging war in Gaza, “things are in good condition”, she said. “We restored some of the slightly corroded bronze pieces and repackaged everything.
“We had to make sure that the Convoy would not be blocked,” she told AFP. “We were waiting for the green light.”
But with any return impossible at the moment, Blandin said “discussions are underway” for a new Gaza exhibition in Switzerland.
Khoudary is excited by the idea.
“The most important collection of things on the history of Gaza is in Geneva. If there is a new show, it will allow the whole world to learn about our history,” he told AFP from Cairo.
“It’s an irony of history,” said Haldimann, who is trying to get his friend Fadel al-Otol out of Gaza safely.
“The new Gaza exhibit would once again show that Gaza… is nothing but a black hole.”
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