41 creative people were martyred and 24 cultural centers were destroyed

Today, Tuesday, the Ministry of Culture issued the third monthly report, which monitors what the Palestinian cultural sector in the southern governorates of the Gaza Strip has been exposed to as a result of the ongoing Israeli war on our people, for more than three months.

During the report, the Ministry monitored the destruction and attacks on cultural property that the cultural sector was exposed to, three months after the war on the Gaza Strip, and the occupation’s continued attacks on all the capabilities of our people.

The cultural scene has lost many creative people in various fields, 41 of whom were known to have been martyred, including 4 children, and a number of cultural centers were completely or partially damaged, of which 24 were known. About 195 historical buildings were also damaged, including 10 mosques and churches, and 8 houses were damaged. Publishing and printing presses, 3 studios and media and artistic production companies.

The Minister of Culture, Atef Abu Seif, said that the war of narratives carried out by the occupying state in order to target the existence of our people is a continuation of the crime of the Nakba, which has not stopped for nearly seventy-six years. The occupation targets historical buildings, heritage sites, museums, mosques, and historical churches, in addition to cultural institutions from centers Theaters, publishing houses, public libraries, retail stores, universities, schools, artistic murals, and books. It assassinates poets, writers, artists, and historians.

Abu Saif added that the war waged by the occupation against our people affects people, stones, trees, place and time, including its past, present and future, in a miserable attempt to obliterate national identity, erase the collective memory of our people, and destroy all evidence of their existence and connection to the land, stressing that Palestinian culture is the genetic gene of our national identity and is the essence and foundation of our historical narrative. And our legal and political advocacy.

He stressed that despite the difficulty of revealing comprehensive and accurate facts about the losses incurred by the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the report prepared by the Ministry’s team clarifies the reality of cultural property and tangible and intangible heritage in Gaza, where the cultural scene in the Strip has been subjected to multiple attacks with complex results.

The report includes an overview of the lives of the martyrs of the Gaza Strip, and of the places targeted by the occupation aircraft, which are historical, Christian and Islamic places and cultural centers that had a significant impact on the Palestinian cultural scene in the Gaza Strip.