Culture & Arts
Volunteers dig through Gaza rubble to salvage destroyed archaeological sites
Image credit: Mondoweiss
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Volunteers in Gaza are excavating destroyed museums and ancient sites by hand to recover artifacts after Israeli military strikes leveled archaeological repositories across the territory, Mondoweiss reported. The campaign targets 5,000-year-old locations damaged during the conflict, with teams working systematically through debris to preserve cultural heritage that survived the bombardment. The recovery efforts underscore the scale of destruction visited on Gaza's material record.
Separately, looted artifacts from Gaza have appeared in a Paris exhibition, raising questions about the systematic removal of antiquities during the conflict. The dual threats—destruction from airstrikes paired with displacement through looting—have placed Gaza's archaeological legacy under unprecedented strain. Volunteers face a race against time as additional damage and artifact trafficking continue.
