Situated at the intersection of Asia and Africa, the Gaza Strip has long been a cultural crossroads. Since Neolithic times, waves of civilizations—Egyptians, Philistines, Romans, Byzantines, Mamluks, Ottomans, and others—have shaped its urban fabric and historical landscape. Gaza’s position along the eastern Mediterranean made it a vital hub for trade, pilgrimage, and exchange, leaving behind a layered architectural and archaeological legacy. Today, the more than 300 heritage sites recognized by Palestine’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities across the Strip reflect this deep and diverse past. At the heart of it lies the Old City of Gaza, home to the largest concentration of historic buildings in the strip: 249 public and private structures clustered within just one square kilometer. But in the aftermath of the ongoing war on Gaza, this rich patrimony has faced unprecedented devastation.
According to the Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation, out of 316 culturally significant sites, 226 have sustained damage: 138 severe damage, 61 moderate damage, and 27 minor damage.1 Museums, mosques, churches, libraries, cemeteries, and archives have not been spared. Satellite imagery and field reports confirm the systematic targeting of urban heritage zones. This is not collateral damage: it is, as Amnesty International and other bodies have warned, the deliberate erasure of cultural identity and collective memory.2 Gaza’s built heritage now faces near-total obliteration.
The catastrophe of built cultural heritage in the Old City of Gaza lies not only in the devastation of war, but also in its slow erosion by everyday local practices. Rooted in technical ignorance and a reductive economic lens that sees historic buildings merely as real estate, structures have been demolished since the 1970s to make way for quick investments, with little awareness of the deeper economic and social potentials of preservation. Furthermore, amid collapsing homes, unregulated urban sprawl emerges, fueled by the absence of regulatory frameworks and the disintegration of the rule of law. Inappropriate tools and modern materials encase ancient walls, stripping buildings of their sensory and visual identities. With no institutional body capable of governance, property boundaries dissolve and disputes proliferate. What’s needed is not just reconstruction, but rethinking: How can a city be rebuilt without erasing its memory? How can the material and immaterial be preserved in a postwar landscape?
Safeguarding Cultural Heritage in Gaza
In the midst of the ongoing war in Gaza, Riwaq has played a pivotal role in safeguarding the rich architectural and urban legacy of the city. Despite being based in the West Bank and the severe blockade that continues to hinder communication and mobility between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Riwaq has managed to establish a strong local team in Gaza. This achievement was made possible through the organization’s longstanding relationships with local experts and heritage professionals. Building on this foundation, Riwaq developed an integrated heritage preservation strategy to respond to the urgent threats facing Gaza’s built environment. This strategy is structured around three levels of intervention: urban planning, urban design, and emergency response for the rescue of endangered historic buildings.
Revitalizing and Creating an Inventory for Gaza's Historic Map (1928)
The Gaza-based initiative to revitalize the 1928 British Mandate map offers an urban archive. Rather than freezing the past, it reimagines the map as a living instrument: documenting, layering, and proposing. In this methodology, mapping becomes resistance. It says: “We were here. We still are.”
This initiative seeks to re-engage with the historical urban fabric of Old Gaza City by critically revitalizing the 1928 British Mandate map. Through this archival lens, the project constructs a living inventory of historic structures and spatial typologies—proposing not a static documentation, but a generative framework that reclaims the past as a catalyst for future reconstruction. Within the logic of cities not as being rebuilt but as continuously evolving, this map becomes both a record and a tool.
Rather than preserving heritage in isolation, the project embeds it within the broader environment of Gaza’s potential reconstruction. In a context where war has severed material continuity, the act of mapping becomes an ethical proposition: to assert the existence of what was, and to imagine what could return.
Ultimately, the map offers a reconstituted vision of Old Gaza—not as a relic of colonial cartography, but as an evolving reference for spatial justice, architectural memory, and adaptive reuse.
The Old City Conservation Guide
In the wake of unprecedented devastation in Gaza’s Old City, the urgency to establish an urban design guideline transcends technical necessity—it becomes a cultural imperative. The proposed Old City Conservation Guide is not merely a manual for reconstruction but a conceptual framework that asserts the right to history, memory, and continuity. The absence of clear urban design standards has left the historic core vulnerable to erasure—not only through physical destruction but through careless rebuilding that disconnects the past from future trajectories. This guide, which was initiated by Riwaq in dialogue with collective local expertise, proposes an integrated approach to safeguarding architectural heritage while responding to evolving socio-economic needs. It articulates standards for reconstruction that are sensitive to material authenticity, typological coherence, and the spatial logic of historic neighborhoods. From public squares to private homes, from markets to sacred sites, the guide maps interventions that prioritize adaptive reuse, cultural resilience, and community well-being.
The Great Omari Mosque: Identity for the Community
The Great Omari Mosque, Gaza’s oldest and most storied religious structure, stood as a palimpsest of civilizations—Philistine, Byzantine, Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk, and Ottoman. Its layered history was etched into sandstone walls and marble columns, many bearing remnants of Crusader churches. Situated in the heart of Gaza’s Old City, the mosque was not merely a place of worship but a living archive of the city’s cultural and spiritual memory.
On December 8, 2023, that memory was violently disrupted. An Israeli airstrike reduced much of the mosque to rubble, toppling parts of its minaret and collapsing its central prayer hall. The destruction was part of a broader campaign that, according to reports, damaged or destroyed a huge number of heritage sites across Gaza during the war. For many Palestinians, the loss of the Great Omari Mosque was not just architectural—it was existential. It signified an attempt to erase centuries of identity, faith, and continuity.
Yet, amid the devastation, hope endures. Following the January 2025 ceasefire, Riwaq, the Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation, and local residents initiated efforts to safeguard and restore the mosque. These efforts included outreach to local and international heritage institutions to raise awareness about the scale of the catastrophe, the development of emergency rescue plans to protect what remains of the mosque, and training local contractors and laborers to manage the vast amounts of rubble and destruction. Work on-site began with immediate interventions to stabilize the structure and eliminate hazards for worshippers and other visitors. The ongoing operations are based on a meticulous classification system for stones and architectural fragments, aiming to support the preparation of future reconstruction plans for this significant monument. In the meantime, the mosque’s remains stand as a testament to both the fragility and tenacity of Gaza’s cultural heritage.
Al-Qissariya Bazaar: Commerce and Continuity
Tucked beside the southern wall of the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza’s Old City, Al-Qissariya—locally known as the “Gold Market”—has for centuries anchored the rhythms of daily life. Originally built in 1329 CE during the Mamluk period, it is one of the few surviving covered markets in the region; its vaulted sixty-meter-long corridor flanked by forty-four modest shops. The market’s narrow proportions and pointed arch entrance signal its medieval lineage, while a discreet doorway mid-hall leads directly into the mosque.
Al-Qissariya is not just a building type, but an idea—a space of convergence common to the region, where goods, stories, and social contracts are exchanged. In Gaza, its significance was compounded by its proximity to a major Silk Road junction, a position that introduced spices to the local cuisine and brought global wares into everyday reach. Prior to October 2023, most shops in the Al-Qissariya sold gold jewelry, often to newlyweds. Though Christians made up less than 1 percent of Gaza’s population, they comprised 20 percent of the market’s merchants, a quiet testament to Gaza’s pluralistic past.
Amid the collapse of the economic system in the Gaza Strip and the near-total loss of job opportunities, however, residents have been forced to rely on their personal savings to support their families. Once cash savings were depleted, people turned to more valuable assets, such as gold. In this context, the Al-Qissariya has become a destination for individuals compelled to part with their gold savings in exchange for urgently needed cash. These sales are driven by the soaring cost of living, as food prices have surged dramatically as a result of the ongoing war.
Before the ongoing war, restoration works on the market began cautiously, with work taking place at night and scaffolding negotiated carefully with shopkeepers. The conservation project was an awakening: the lighting, the pavement, the colors, the materials, all improved the quality of life in Gaza’s Old City. The refurbished Al-Qissariya became a destination, sparking a modest cultural renaissance in its wake.
Then came the airstrikes. In July 2024, a direct hit destroyed the market’s eastern facade and a third of its vaulted interiors. The intricately carved Mamluk stones—some dating back over 700 years—now rest in storage, awaiting a future when rebuilding is possible.
CISS and the Manuscript Rescue Project
In the shifting terrain of Gaza’s cultural landscape, the dome of Dar al-Saada and the manuscript archive of the Great Omari Mosque once stood as testaments to a deep, yet often imperiled, intellectual tradition. These sites, nested in the Old City of Gaza, were more than architecture or storage—they were active sites of memory. In 2021, a project was launched to restore the dome and conserve over 200 surviving manuscripts, many dating back 700 years and spanning subjects from jurisprudence and medicine to astronomy and Sufi mysticism. For the first time in Gaza, a conservation lab was established, combining training, scientific restoration, and public engagement, thereby intertwining tangible and intangible heritage.
Led by Cooperazione Internazionale Sud Sud, an Italian NGO of solidarity and international cooperation, and Abdul Al-Latif Abu Hashim, the manager of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Waqf’s Manuscripts Department in Gaza, the initiative wasn’t just a technical exercise—it was a deeply social act. Local schools, women’s groups, and university students were brought into the process not merely as observers but as participants. The community’s thirst for identity was palpable.
But preservation efforts have always run parallel to destruction. Historically, the manuscript library was looted by Napoleon’s army in 1799, burned for warmth by people in World War I, and shelled during the British Mandate. More recently, decades of Israeli occupation and repeated wars have eroded this archive of memory. In 2023, the archive building—modern but fragile—collapsed following an airstrike that hit an adjacent site. Steel cabinets holding centuries-old manuscripts were crushed, their contents soaked, scattered, and smudged into near oblivion.
The early 2025 ceasefire allowed a rescue team to sift through the debris. What remained was heartbreaking: damp paper, fragmented ink, stained texts—each page a wounded whisper of a legacy almost lost. Yet even in fragments, the manuscripts resist erasure. They speak not only of Gaza’s intellectual history—home to scholars like Imam Shafi'i—but also of the ongoing refusal to forget, to give up, to surrender the right to narrate one’s own story.
As of January 2025.
“Amnesty International investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” Amnesty international, December5, 2024, ➝.