The Geneva Museum of Art and History (MAH) played a key role in a frantic operation to evacuate thousands of artefacts from Gaza’s main archaeological storage facility on Thursday (9 September), ahead of an Israeli strike that destroyed the building.
Last week, Israeli forces began issuing eviction notices to residents in Gaza City, warning them to leave ahead of strikes targeting high-rise buildings. Among these targets was the ten-storey Al-Kawthar residential tower, which housed the storage facility of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF) on its ground floor. The institution has overseen excavations in Gaza for over 20 years. In a notice put out ahead of the attack, the Israeli military cited alleged Hamas infrastructure in or around the building.
On learning of the planned strike, MAH staff scrambled to find support to delay the attack and organise an evacuation. The facility contained finds from key archaeological sites in Gaza, including the ruins of the fourth-century Saint Hilarion Monastery, which are on Unesco’s World Heritage List.
“Our aim was to put pressure on Israeli archaeologists and inform Swiss political authorities—the Swiss government, the Swiss Embassy in Tel Aviv—as well as institutions such as Blue Shield International, Unesco, the Aliph Foundation, and archaeologists about what was happening,” says Béatrice Blandin, the curator in charge of archaeological collections at MAH.
The museum has a nearly two-decade relationship with Gaza. The exhibition Gaza at the Crossroads of Civilisations, held at MAH in 2007, featured more than 500 objects unearthed in the enclave. The show was intended as a precursor to a future archaeological museum in Gaza but, following Hamas’s takeover in 2007 and the subsequent Israeli blockade, the artefacts could not be returned—and so they have remained in Geneva ever since. In 2024, an exhibition marking the 70th anniversary of the Hague Convention, Patrimony in Peril, curated by Blandin, showcased 44 of them.
Negotiations to decant the Gazan storage facility ahead of the recent strikes is also understood to have included France, Unesco and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. The talks succeeded and the Israelis granted a brief window to remove the artefacts. “The process began on Thursday morning at 7am and ended in the afternoon due to a lack of security guarantees for the teams on site,” says Blandin.
The EBAF storage facility, which had already been damaged by previous strikes
Photo: Fadel Al Utol
Blandin says that one archaeologist at MAH, Fadel Al-Utol—who had long worked in Gaza and knew the repository in detail—was crucial to the operation, guiding the on-the-ground team on which artefacts to prioritise. The veteran French archaeologist Jean-Baptiste Humbert, who undertook excavations in Gaza for EBAF for decades, was also consulted.
Not all objects were saved from the strike. “Unfortunately, the evacuation was not completed. Seventy percent of the artefacts were transferred, and 30% remained,” Al-Utol says. The majority of the items that remained on site are believed to be ceramics and lapidary objects.
Al-Utol, who has dedicated his life to protecting Gaza’s heritage, is deeply affected by the destruction. “It feels as if I lost one of my children,” he says. He says the evacuation was overshadowed by constant concern for the safety of those involved, and family and friends still “trapped in Gaza”.
The transfer involved more than 20 people working on the ground, including members of Première Urgence Internationale, a humanitarian organisation which has worked in Gaza since 2009. The team had to navigate the use of trucks unsuited for fragile material and limited packaging. “Nevertheless, the number of objects that were saved from destruction is remarkable, thanks to the mobilisation of workers and volunteers on the ground,” Blandin says.
Repository “should not have been destroyed”
Both Blandin and Al-Utol remain concerned for the rescued artefacts, pointing out that many heritage sites in Gaza have been “targeted and destroyed”. Unesco’s preliminary damage assessment for cultural properties has verified damage to 110 sites in Gaza.
“Under the [1954] Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, the archaeological repository, like many other monuments and sites, should not have been destroyed,” Blandin says.
On Monday, Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) confirmed the transfer on social media and via a press release. The release claimed the artefacts belonged to Gaza’s Christian community and described the operation as “part of the effort to allow the movement of residents and international organisations to the southern Gaza Strip for their protection”. The operation, it said, “was carried out in coordination with COGAT’s Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) for Gaza, in cooperation with an international organisation”.
Emek Shaveh, an Israeli NGO that works to prevent the politicisation of archaeology in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, condemned COGAT’s announcement as a “disgrace”.
“Since the beginning of the war, Israel has damaged or destroyed hundreds of protected cultural sites and artefacts. The attempt to portray the current evacuation as if the State of Israel were investing resources to prevent such harm is absurd and constitutes a mockery of international law,” its statement says.
The NGO also criticised the claim that artefacts belong only to Gaza’s Christian community, emphasising that the heritage represents millennia of culture and belongs to all Gazans and Palestinians.
“Emek Shaveh calls on the State of Israel to immediately cease the destruction of Gaza City, including its cultural heritage sites, which are protected under international law,” the statement adds.
