The Israeli army threatened last week to bombard a building holding the largest archeological collection in the Gaza Strip, the Biblical and Archeological Research Institute (EBAF) said.

Over the weekend, archaeologists carried out a rescue mission to secure the most important items from the collection. However, most of the collection was not moved and remains at risk of destruction.

On Wednesday evening, IDF Arabic Spokesman Col. Avichay Adraee issued a special evacuation notice for parts of Gaza City, including a block of buildings marked on IDF maps as 787, located in the Rimal neighborhood.

One of these was a ten-floor building whose lower floor has been used for the past ten years as a depot by EBAF. According to EBAF sources, the IDF issued a specific warning about the building as part of its campaign to demolish high-rises in Gaza City in the past week. The Israeli Air Force had already destroyed a residential high-rise 400 meters from the building used by EBAF.

Smoke and flames rise as a residential building collapses after an Israeli air strike, in Gaza City, last week. Credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/ REUTERS

When EBAF received the warning on Wednesday, its staff contacted the French government to intervene to prevent an Israeli strike. Several sources said that France, UNESCO and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem helped delay the strike, to allow time for moving the depot’s contents.

The archeologists then began transferring items but faced difficulties due to a shortage of trucks in Gaza, damaged roads, a lack of packing materials and fears that the objects might be damaged in transit or looted by residents.

The most important artifacts were moved to a church in Gaza City in the hope that the IDF would not target it. “We saved a large part, but in a rescue you always lose things, and you always face painful choices,” EBAF associate archeologist René Elter told The Guardian.

“Many items have been broken or lost, but they had been photographed or drawn, so the scientific information is preserved. Perhaps that will be the only trace that remains of Gaza’s archaeology – in books, publications, libraries,” he added.

Video Documentation posted by the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority from the archaeology depot in Gaza City, January 2024.

EBAF is one of the largest and oldest institutions dedicated to the study of Biblical history in Gaza, and its depot contains thousands of archeological artifacts.

In a press release issued on Thursday, EBAF stated that the depot contained 180 cubic meters of artifacts from five excavated sites in the Gaza Strip, including pottery, mosaics, and metal tools. The IDF had entered the depot in January 2024, when soldiers took pictures inside and even invited the deputy director of the Israel Antiquities Authority to visit.

In response, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said: “As part of the efforts to allow residents and international organizations to move to the southern Gaza Strip, the transfer of warehouses of the international community and their contents is permitted. The warehouse in question is known to IDF officers. As part of the current dialogue with the organization, the warehouse’s contents, which include archeological artifacts and Christian pottery, were evacuated. The archeological artifacts and pottery were therefore transferred to a safe location in coordination with the Gaza Liaison and Coordination Administration.”

Nir Hasson