During the Gaza war beginning in 2023, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has destroyed or damaged hundreds of culturally or historically significant buildings, libraries, museums, and other repositories of knowledge in Gaza, alongside the destruction of intangible cultural heritage. Nearly 80% of the buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed and 1.9 million people have been displaced.

There are hundreds of cultural heritage sites in Gaza, including more than 300 architectural heritage sites. In addition to the damaged and destroyed heritage sites, by February 2024 a total of 44 people involved with arts and culture had been killed. Cultural heritage embodies a people's collective identity. Destroyed sites have included archives, museums, mosques, churches, and cemeteries. Israel's destruction of cultural heritage in Gaza has been conducted in a systematic way.

During the war, much of the Old City of Gaza was severely damaged or destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, including the Great Omari Mosque and a compound of the Church of Saint Porphyrius – the oldest mosque and oldest church in Gaza, respectively – as well as other historical sites such as the Ibn Uthman Mosque, the Pasha Palace, the As-Saqqa Palace, the Al-Qissariya Market, and the Hamam al-Sammara. The ancient port of Anthedon was completely destroyed. Museums including the Al Qarara Cultural Museum, the Akkad Museum, and the Rafah Museum were looted, damaged, or destroyed.

In response to the threat to heritage sites, UNESCO called for the protection of heritage sites during the war. In July 2024, it added 'The Monastery of Saint Hilarion/Tell Umm Amer' to the list of World Heritage Sites and its list of sites in danger. The destruction of cultural heritage sites has been characterised by some as cultural genocide, and South Africa included the destruction of cultural heritage in Gaza as evidence of genocide in its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Background Cultural heritage in Gaza

Cultural heritage is passed down from generation to generation, comprising material culture such as artworks and buildings and intangible things such as traditions and ways of life. A 2010 survey identified 13 libraries in the Gaza Strip, and in 2017 there were five museums. In the view of archaeologist Jean-Baptiste Humbert, "Gaza's society is sensitive to its heritage, but the crushing that has been inflicted by the occupying forces over the past fifty years means that vital priorities like feeding, caring for, and educating the population have pushed cultural heritage aside as a luxury for wealthy countries."

The Gaza Strip is densely populated and modern buildings are often built over archaeological sites. In 2023 there were more than 300 architectural heritage sites in Gaza, including a range of different structures such as mosques, palaces, schools, and cemeteries. The most common categories of historic site according to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities are houses, followed by tells (settlement mounds) and mosques.

The historic buildings and heritage sites that make up a place embody its collective identity and history; they are important to the community of which they are a part and are an extension of their identity. Memory of significant places and events can be preserved through material culture – from small objects to buildings. For Palestinians forcibly displaced from their homes in 1948 during the Nakba, the Palestinian key has become tangible symbols of the homes they had to leave behind.

Destruction of cultural heritage

Speaking about cultural heritage broadly, the archaeologist Cornelius Holtorf remarked "If heritage is said to contribute to people's identities, the loss of heritage can contribute to people's identities even more." Destruction of places and cultural heritage is often part of war and genocide and is intended to undermine a society. It has been used in this way from prehistory and classical antiquity to the modern day, notably in Nazi persecution of the Jews. The philosopher Jeff Malpas highlights the use of destruction to exert authority and control over other groups as a significant issue in Israel–Palestine relations.

Cultural sites are protected under Article 53 of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, and the intentional destruction of historic monument or buildings is considered a war crime. The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict requires that states "[refrain] from any use of the property and its immediate surroundings or of the appliances in use for its protection for purposes which are likely to expose it to destruction or damage in the event of armed conflict; and by refraining from any act of hostility, directed against such property". Previous conflicts between Gaza and Israel have affected the Gaza Strip's cultural heritage sites; this includes the 2008–09 war which resulted in damage to Gaza's libraries and what was then its only museum, while the 2014 war damaged more than 170 mosques in Gaza.

Impact Overview On 7 October 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than a thousand people (including more than 800 civilians) and taking some 251 hostages. In response Israel began a counterattack on Gaza; its initial focus was on the northern Gaza Strip, and bombing intensified towards the end of 2023 and expanded to the south with ground invasions to the extent that more half of the buildings in the Strip had been damaged or destroyed by January 2024. More than 46,600 Palestinians had been killed by the time of a ceasefire in January 2025, with the majority consisting of women and children, and there was extensive damage to civilian infrastructure. Israel's bombing campaign is one of the most destructive in recent history, and nearly 80% of the buildings in the Gaza Strip were damaged or destroyed during the conflict by July 2025. The destruction has left residential areas devastated, and 1.9 million people have been displaced. In addition, the Israeli military established bases on some archaeological sites such as Anthedon.

The Palestinian Ministry of Culture published several interim reports on the impact of the war on Gaza's cultural heritage. In February 2024, they reported that 44 people involved with arts and culture were killed and around 200 historic buildings were damaged or destroyed, along with 12 museums and numerous cultural centres. Intangible cultural heritage has also been affected through the loss of centres that provided community activities and supported Gazan culture. In January 2025, shortly after the ceasefire, the Ministry of Culture began a process of evaluating the impact on the ground. UNESCO has an ongoing damage assessment and initially relied primarily on satellite image; since the ceasefire of October 2025 this has been complemented by "rapid on-site assessments". As of March 2026 it has identified damage at 164 sites. The Centre for Cultural Heritage Preservation with the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project at the University of Oxford compiled a report on the impact of the war. Data collected in June to September 2024 documented damage to 226 cultural heritage sites in the Gaza Strip. On the ground in Gaza, Palestinian archaeologist Fadel al-Utol has been coordinating a group documenting the destruction of cultural heritage sites. The World Bank estimated that over US$300 million damage had been caused to Gaza's cultural heritage by the end of January 2024, part of US$18 billion damage to Gaza's built infrastructure. Restoring all the damaged sites would take nearly a decade. Following the ceasefire in late 2025, the Palestinian government and UNESCO developed a recovery plan which included US$133 for historical sites.

Museums, archives, and libraries

A Ministry of Culture noted that 12 museums had been damaged. The Al Qarara Cultural Museum was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike early on in the conflict. On 25 November 2023, the Rashad Shawa Cultural Center was destroyed by Israeli shelling. It had been used as a shelter for hundreds of civilians and contained a theatre and library with tens of thousands of books. Other libraries, including Gaza Municipal Library, Enaim Library, Al-Nahda Library, Al-Shorouq Al-Daem Library, the Kana'an Educational Development Institute, were reported as damaged or destroyed in November and December 2023.

In December 2023, bombardment by Israel destroyed the Central Archives of Gaza City which contained thousands of historically important documents. The Great Omari Mosque housed one of the most important libraries in Palestine; the rare books in its collection, which had survived the crusades and the First World War, were destroyed in the airstrike. As of December 2025, the Great Omari Mosque's Manuscripts Department, which previously held 228 complete manuscripts and 78 fragmented manuscripts (known as dasht), along with numerous Ottoman administrative records and waqf documents, was left with 147 complete manuscripts that were recovered, although most sustained significant damage, while the remainder were buried beneath the rubble. Only 35 folios from the fragmented manuscripts survived. The Ottoman records were entirely destroyed and none were recovered during excavation efforts. The manuscript collection of the Great Omari Mosque dates from the Mamluk period to the late Ottoman era and encompasses a range of disciplines, including astronomy, literature, poetry, sermons by Gaza-based scholars, and jurisprudence. The medieval Qasr al-Basha, also known as Pasha's Palace, was left in ruins after Israeli bombardment. The palace functioned as an archaeology museum. Other museums damaged or looted during the conflict included the Akkad Museum in Khan Yunis and the Rafah Museum.

Religious sites

In July 2026, According to the Gaza Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments, 1,076 of the 1,275 mosques in the region were completely destroyed and 165 were partially destroyed during the Israeli attacks on Gaza. The ministry also announced that 233 Muslim clerics and 20 Christian clerics have been killed in Israeli attacks since the start of the war.

On 19 October 2023 an Israeli airstrike hit the Church of Saint Porphyrius campus, the oldest church in Gaza. Hundreds of civilians were sheltering there at the time of the attack, and 18 people including several children were killed. The Sayed al-Hashim Mosque was also amongst the sites damaged during the first months of the conflict. The Omari Mosque – the oldest mosque in Gaza – was hit by an Israeli airstrike in December. 2023, leaving only the minaret intact.

In July 2024, the 15th-century Ibn Uthman Mosque in Gaza's Shuja'iyya neighbourhood was destroyed by an airstrike during an Israeli attack on the area. Further destruction was reported by Al-Jazeera in August, with the destroyed with explosives and IDF soldiers burning a Quran in the Bani Saleh Mosque in northern Gaza. In the assessment of Mariam Shah, a peace and conflict researcher, "Israel has targeted ancient mosques and churches, which are symbols of both historical and religious significance. These sites transcend physicality; they are vessels of faith and tradition, preserving local architectural legacies and representing the long history of interfaith coexistence in Gaza."

Cemeteries

An investigation by CNN in early 2024 using satellite imagery identified sixteen cemeteries in Gaza that had been damaged as a result of the conflict. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used bulldozers to level cemeteries and dig up bodies, and in some cases established fortified positions on top of burial grounds. In 2025 the Israeli military bulldozed the southern corner of the Gaza War Cemetery, damaging memorials and over 100 graves, the majority of which were of Australian soldiers who died in the Second World War.

Places of education