A view of St. Helarion in Gaza. Picture by Ahmed Al Nabris, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).On a summer day, when I started my secondary school in Gaza, my father told me a story. The story goes, when Israel occupied Egyptian Sinai, they brought a huge drill with hundreds of stones that have ancient Hebrew calligraphy on them. They dag and buried them secretly in the desert. "They did that so the next generations will find them and say that this land belongs to Israel," he explained.
Being a teenager, I listened sparingly. Even though I could not verify my dad's story, I do have oral evidence from security officers in Gaza who worked in this field from 1994 until 2007. They claim that Israel, in collaboration with Palestinians used to seize and steal Gaza's antiquities. I have seen the Taliban destroying Bamiyan Buddhas, I have witnessed the time when ISIS destroyed Palmyra, I have seen the looting and destruction of Iraqi antiquities, and cried in front of Ishtar's gate in Berlin, but never did I expect to witness the elimination of one of the most ancient Canaanite cities at the hands of Palestinians.
The first documented human settlements in the Gaza Strip date back to 6000 years ago. This part of the world has been part of the Iron, Bronze, Stone, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic, Ottoman, and Modern ages, it has been under endless attacks that have targeted its antiquities and tangible heritage.
