The destruction of Palestinian heritage to undermine the Palestinian national identity started many years ago but intensified recently. The war on Gaza (and not in Gaza) has now been going on for over a year but the attempts to destroy Palestinian heritage has been going on for far longer.

In all our minds, the prime importance is the enormous humanitarian crisis that has been created in Palestine and, now, in Lebanon. This crisis will drain the financial resources of a number of countries that help out to feed and house the displaced millions.

As I said in a webinar last week attended by hundreds, I am not interested in politics. I leave politics to those that are making millions by selling armaments and those hoping to make more millions in the ‘reconstruction’ phase, if there will be one. My interest is the heritage being destroyed, as this is part of our heritage. It is part of the history of mankind and we are looking the other way while it gets destroyed.

I have my own opinion on what happened on October 7 last year but I do not wish to increase the threats to my life. I will just say that, having visited Gaza three times in 2022 and 2023, with the enormous logistical difficulties of getting in and out, it was a well-protected prison and the drones above my head as I visited heritage sites is proof enough. I have enormous sympathy for those caught in the fighting and hope they could be freed alive today.

Someone decided that Gaza had to be destroyed. Gaza was already imploding with over two million people in a territory the size of Malta. So many heritage sites had already been lost as people needed housing. Over 100 had been registered as heritage sites years ago. What was left has been mainly destroyed by this one-year war, except for St Hilarion monastery, which has been protected by UNESCO.

But Gaza is just part of the attempt to destroy the heritage of Palestine. National identity depends mainly on three factors.  The territory of a country (and Palestine is already formed of pieces of territory that is not even connected), language (but Arabic is shared with many countries) and cultural heritage. We cannot allow this heritage to be destroyed.

There is a constant attack on Palestinian cultural heritage. I will speak only about the sites I know personally and where I have been involved in the dossiers presented to UNESCO: there are many more.

This is their heritage but it is also ours- Ray Bondin

Jericho is under constant threat despite its two world heritage sites.

Bethlehem, another world heritage site, is now completely enclosed by the wall and the ever-advancing enormous settlements right on its doorstep.

Battir, another world heritage site, is also facing the advancement of settlements that have destroyed its beauty, including the unique system of water distribution that made it special and green.

The Omari Mosque in Gaza City, formerly a Byzantine Basilica.

Cremisan, for which I wrote the world heritage dossier, has been destroyed by the settlements, by the uprooting of thousand-year-old olive trees and the building of an Israeli super-highway right off the valley.

Now, Gaza has lost some extremely important sites from the early Christian and Islamic periods and the Ottoman period.

Furthermore, so many buildings that were examples of vernacular architecture have been destroyed forever and these were not even documented.

This is all part of a plan to destroy the national identity of Palestine. And as more and more people die, not only in Gaza but also in the rest of Palestine, most of the world just complain but do nothing except for some talks and declarations that do not resolve anything.

This is their heritage but it is also ours.

Heritage can be reconstructed but that is never the same. The buried will certainly not return but we all have a moral obligation not to let a nation be destroyed.

Ray Bondin is a renowned world heritage expert and has been collaborating with Palestine for 25 years.