GAZA CITY: Muneer Elbaz remembers the joy of visiting the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza with his family, praying at a site where people have worshipped over centuries as empires came and went.
“These were the best days,” Elbaz said, as he recalled promenading through the lively markets around the mosque before the Israel-Hamas war. “This place transports us from one era to another.”
Today, much of the mosque stands in ruins – like most of Gaza – after being hit by Israeli strikes in the two-year war muffled by an uncertain ceasefire. The sight of the rubble brings to mind “a tree that had been uprooted from the land,” said Elbaz, a Palestinian heritage consultant involved with recovery work at the site.
Israel’s military offensive killed over 72,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and erased entire extended families.
Gone too is some of the heritage of a land with a rich history going back to ancient times. The mosque was built on a site where a Byzantine church had stood, and changed hands and even religions as one invader followed another.
