Palestinians look to salvage Gaza's history

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.

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"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.