Guardians of Heritage: Volunteers Race Against Time to Rescue Gaza's 5,000-Year-Old Artifacts Amid Conflict

Volunteers and specialists use basic tools to carefully excavate a buried artefact during field survey operations in Gaza. Alongside the conflict in Gaza, there has been an apparent attempt to erase the Palestinian enclave’s cultural heritage. At least 164 cultural sites in Gaza have been damaged since military operations began, according to UNESCO. Among the ancient landmarks affected in waves of bombing are the Great Omari Mosque and Hamam al-Sammara, Qasr al-Basha in Gaza’s Old City, and the al-Qarara Cultural Museum near Khan Younis.

Among the rubble are precious artefacts and antiquities, which tell a story of Gaza’s rich cultural history, being at the crossroads of multiple empires and peoples over centuries. Valuable relics of Palestine’s history are being lost amid the destruction. The Mayasem Association for Culture and Arts’ “Guardians of Heritage” team is racing against time to recover these items at risk of deteriorating or being stolen.

Shaimaa Mohammad al-Natour, assistant coordinator of the programme, told Al Jazeera that her team has so far rescued more than 1,700 historical pieces from four museum collections since their work began. The team is working hard to recover the remaining lost artefacts of Gaza’s 5,000-year-old history, facing huge challenges including continued displacement, a shortage of specialised restoration equipment, and military restrictions.

There is also the dangerous task of rescuing items near the so-called “Yellow Line”, a dividing zone in Gaza with complete military control. “The nature of the areas used to be manageable, but their current locations are completely inaccessible,” al-Natour told Al Jazeera. “The main difficulty in continuing our work with these collections is their location behind the ‘Yellow Line,’ which poses a grave risk to the team. One of our core principles is: human life comes first.”

With a vast majority of structures in Gaza damaged or destroyed, the team currently works from a tent in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis. What began as a self-initiated effort has turned into a field operation with the huge burden of ensuring that Gaza’s heritage is not lost. The team conducts extensive field surveys across southern and central areas of Gaza to document the damage inflicted on both private and public museum collections.

The team works closely with locals and displaced residents who find artefacts among the debris. “We handle notifications by first filling out a comprehensive survey containing the informant’s details, the artefact’s location, and its condition,” al-Natour said. “The team then heads to the site to rescue the items, after which the processing stages begin: cleaning, archiving and photography.”

The team follows a strict protocol, starting from recording the circumstances of its discovery to giving it an independent digital identity. “After rescuing the pieces from their locations, the documentation and archiving process begins. We try as much as possible not to bring any artefact into storage without a record and basic information to help us identify its origin,” said al-Natour.

Certain archaeological items, particularly pottery and glassware, are subject to immense physical stress caused by explosions and collapsed building debris, resulting in fractures. These need the utmost care when being handled, with the team operating a policy of minimal intervention and stabilisation through conservation first aid. They begin by inspecting each piece, documenting its condition, and photographing damage to the item, limited by the technical gear at hand like mobile phones for high-resolution photography and parallel paper records.

Operating from a tent in a coastal region exposes the recovered materials to volatile weather conditions, insects, rodents, humidity, mould, and vibrations. “The wooden crates themselves require continuous monitoring because humidity and temperature fluctuations can rot the wood or foster mould growth, which in turn damages the contents inside,” al-Natour said.

The solution would be to establish a stable storage environment where temperature, humidity, ventilation, and lighting can be controlled. “Our greatest need is to transition from emergency rescue to long-term professional conservation,” al-Natour said. “Furthermore, we need specialised training in preventive conservation, emergency collection management, handling damaged artefacts, damage assessment and database management.”

The impact of the initiative extends beyond saving stone artefacts and ancient vessels to building community awareness that makes residents and displaced individuals the guardians of their own culture, oral history and heritage. “The rescue process itself has become an educational tool – when people see a team working under these conditions to extract a historical piece from beneath the rubble, they begin to view heritage as something worth protecting rather than something dispensable in times of crisis,” said al-Natour.