Gazans race to preserve cultural heritage damaged in war |
GAZA, Dec 3 (Reuters) - With 70,000 dead, countless injured, hundreds of thousands of people homeless and whole districts laid to waste, the task of rebuilding Gaza is almost beyond comprehension.
But at a handful of sites where the enclave's most valuable historical monuments have been severely damaged, workers are already busy with shovels, trying to dig out the few surviving remnants of the past.
Those include Gaza's most important cultural site, the great Omari Mosque in Gaza's Old City, which Israeli forces struck during the war to destroy what they said was a tunnel under its grounds used by fighters. Palestinians say there is no sign of such a tunnel there, and blame Israel for blasting apart the enclave's religious and cultural heritage.
"If the occupation (Israel) believes that by destroying these buildings it can erase the history of this people, it is mistaken," said Hamuda al-Dahdar, an architect and heritage expert at the Centre for Cultural Preservation, which is based in the West Bank city of........