Palestinians scramble to save centuries-old books and manuscripts before they are lost Brushing away layers of soot and dust, archaeologist Hanin Al-Amassi examines the brittle pages of a manuscript carrying the weight of Gaza's history.

The item once sat in the Omari Mosque, one of Gaza's oldest and most revered landmarks in the heart of Gaza City's old quarter.

Covering 4,100 square metres and with a courtyard of 1,190 square metres, the site was once a cornerstone of Gaza's religious and cultural life until it was flattened during more than 15 months of Israeli attacks on the strip

Now a restoration team from Gaza's Ministry of Religious Endowments is painstakingly retrieving historical manuscripts, rare volumes, and archival documents — some nearly 700 years old — from beneath the rubble.

"The collection spans diverse fields of knowledge, from astrology to literature, and is adorned with exquisite calligraphy," Mrs Al-Amassi told the ABC ...

... When a ceasefire went into effect in Gaza in October, Mrs Al-Amassi and her team carried out a recovery operation to salvage the manuscripts buried beneath collapsed stone and steel.

The team salvaged 123 of the 228 manuscripts, as well as 78 loose pages.

Of the items that were retrieved 36 were miraculously preserved ...

... While the physical remnants of Gaza's history have been lost in Israel's bombardment, there has been one glimmer of hope for archaeologists.

From 2019 to October 7, 2023, Mrs Al-Amassi said her team were digitising the manuscripts from the Omari Mosque library's collection.

The project was done in a collaboration with the British Library and the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library based on the campus of Saint John's University in Minnesota ...

... On September 11, 2025, a dedicated mission rushed to preserve a substantial part of Gaza's archaeological heritage.

The previous day, the IDF issued an evacuation order for the Al-Kawthar high-rise building in Gaza City where most Gaza artefacts were stored.

Under the imminent threat of bombing, 180 square metres of treasures were urgently evacuated in a mission coordinated by the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem.

The collection had been gathered from the five main archaeological sites in the Gaza Strip, including the Saint Hilarion Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage site ...