Rich heritage buried under impoverished Gaza Strip

Rich heritage buried under impoverished Gaza Strip

While workers labored on a large construction site in the Gaza Strip, a security guard noticed a strange piece of stone sticking out of the earth. “I thought it was a tunnel,” said Ahmad, the young guard, referring to secret passages dug by the Islamist group Hamas to help it battle the Zionists.

In the Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas and repeatedly ravaged by war, people are more familiar with burying the dead than digging up their heritage. But what Ahmad found in January was part of a Roman necropolis dating from about 2,000 years ago—representative of the impoverished Palestinian territory’s rich, if under-developed, archaeological treasures.

After the last war between Zionist and Hamas in May 2021 left a trail of damage in Gaza, Egypt began a reconstruction initiative worth $500 million. As part of that project in Jabaliya, in the north of the coastal enclave, bulldozers were digging up the sandy soil in order to build new concrete buildings when Ahmad made his discovery. “I notified the Egyptian foremen, who immediately contacted local authorities and asked the workers to stop,” said Ahmad, a Palestinian who preferred not to give his full name.

With rumors on social media of a big discovery, Gaza’s