The announcement distributed today by COGAT regarding the antiquities warehouse that
\nwas forced to be evacuated prior to its complete destruction in a military air-strike is a
\ndisgrace. The strike, allegedly carried out against \u201cHamas infrastructure,\u201d is part of a
\ncomprehensive campaign to annihilate the city of Gaza. Since the beginning of the war,
\nthe army has demonstrated that nothing will stop it in its pursuit of the total destruction
\nof Gaza City\u2014not even the city\u2019s antiquities and cultural heritage.<\/p>\n
International law prohibits harm to cultural property, including archaeological sites,
\nhistoric buildings, collections, museums, universities, archives, libraries, and more. Since
\nthe beginning of the war, Israel has damaged or destroyed hundreds of protected cultural
\nsites and artifacts. The attempt to portray the current evacuation as if the State of Israel
\nwere investing resources to prevent such harm is absurd and constitutes a mockery of
\ninternational law.<\/p>\n
In this case, the army permitted only a partial evacuation of the findings it intended to
\nstrike, and that was possible solely thanks to the tremendous efforts of Gaza\u2019s residents,
\nsupported by international organizations, who succeeded in saving a portion of the
\ncollection. The warehouse contained approximately 30 years of archaeological work in the
\nGaza Strip and housed tens of thousands of items. Some were removed, but many were
\ndestroyed.<\/p>\n
It is important to recall that the army had already raided this same warehouse and even
\ninvited the Israel Antiquities Authority to visit it. At the time, the Authority issued an
\nofficial recommendation to transfer part of the collection to Israel, but later retracted it
\nunder public and international pressure.<\/p>\n
Finally, the attempt to attribute this so-called gesture to the Christian community, as
\nthough these items belong to Christians alone, is sheer ignorance. The heritage of Gaza
\nrepresents thousands of years of human culture and creativity and belongs to Gazans and
\nPalestinians, regardless of their religion.<\/p>\n
Emek Shaveh calls on the State of Israel to immediately cease the destruction of
\nGaza City, including its cultural heritage sites, which are protected under
\ninternational law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The announcement distributed today by COGAT regarding the antiquities warehouse that was forced to be evacuated prior to its complete destruction in a military air-strike is a disgrace. The strike, allegedly carried out against \u201cHamas infrastructure,\u201d is part of a comprehensive campaign to annihilate the city of Gaza. Since the beginning of the war, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n