GAZA CITY: One bucket at a time, Palestinian workers cleared sand and crumbling mortar from the remains of a former medieval fortress turned museum in Gaza City, damaged by two years of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
A dozen workers in high-visibility jackets worked by hand to excavate the bomb-damaged buildings that remain of the Pasha Palace Museum — which once housed Napoleon Bonaparte during a one-night stay in Gaza — stacking stones to be reused in one pile and rubble to be discarded in another.
Overhead, an Israeli surveillance drone buzzed loudly while the team toiled in silence.
“The Pasha Palace Museum is one of the most important sites destroyed during the recent war in Gaza City,” Hamouda Al-Dahdar, the cultural heritage expert in charge of the restoration works, said, adding that more than 70 percent of the palace’s buildings were destroyed.
As of October 2025, the UN’s cultural heritage agency, UNESCO, had identified damage at 114 sites since the start of the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, including the Pasha Palace.
