In Gaza, the mission to save lives is inseparable from the mission to save heritage — Israel's ongoing genocide targets both people and culture with equal devastation.
Against this backdrop, Haneen Alamssi, 33, an architect from Gaza City, has dedicated herself to preserving culture during the ongoing Israeli aggression , working alongside a dozen young women volunteers who share her commitment to protecting the city's history and passing it on to future generations.
"The initiative was born out of the sheer darkness of the landscape in Gaza," Haneen tells The New Arab .
Her voluntary project seeks to provide "first aid" to the Al-Omari Mosque library's remaining books and ancient manuscripts, which have been targeted by Israeli strikes three times since 2023.
The attacks left the historic building with major structural damage and buried centuries of history beneath the rubble.
With a heavy heart, Haneen, who is also a specialist engineer in the restoration of art, sculptures and murals, and the executive director of the Eyes on Heritage Foundation , describes the Al-Omari library as it stood before 2023.
She recalls the library as a popular destination for school field trips.
"There isn't a child in Gaza, in primary or preparatory school, who hasn't visited it and explored its treasures and manuscripts," she says. Loss of a historic archive The library is housed within the Great Omari Mosque , an important Islamic landmark in the heart of Gaza's Old City that resonates with Palestinians.
More than just a building, it gathered the heritage of scholars from Acre, Jerusalem and beyond — a legacy evidenced by handwritten dedications inscribed on the pages of its rare volumes.
As Haneen notes, it served as a vital social institution, uniting the intellectual community. With roots stretching back more than 1,400 years, the landmark has evolved through six distinct architectural eras.
Before its destruction, the library housed 20,000 items, including rare books, periodicals, contracts and journals.
Everything rare was burned. There was an exceptionally rare 700-year-old Mamluk-era manuscript — the Diwan of Ibn Zuqa'a al-Ghazzi — which Haneen pulled from under the rubble, only to find it unrecoverable.
Haneen says this is the only surviving library, as others were directly incinerated and targeted by Israel in what she describes as a systematic cultural genocide .
"We have salvaged what could be salvaged to try to rise again, so that it may be a glimmer of hope for future generations," she says, adding that the losses are "catastrophic and beyond description."
The destruction of Gaza's intellectual landscape is extensive, with UNESCO verifying damage to 164 cultural sites.
At least 13 major libraries have been devastated, including the 150-year-old Central Archives . The vanishing archive The Eyes on Heritage Foundation , established in Gaza in 2009 by historian Dr Abd al-Latif Abu Hashem , was completely destroyed in an Israeli strike in September 2025. This follows an earlier incident in 2014, when the foundation's headquarters were also destroyed in a strike.
With its destruction, hundreds of documents, manuscripts and archives have been lost.
According to Haneen, Gaza's community had placed deep trust in the organisation to safeguard their ancestral legacy, as it remained strictly independent and free of political affiliations.
This loss compelled her to preserve whatever she could in the remaining libraries.
In response, Haneen brought together and trained a group of young women to rescue what remained of the Al-Omari library. They were driven by a shared sense of responsibility, working in hazardous conditions, including dust, animal remains, high humidity, and the overwhelming smell of decaying books.
Haneen says that she and the team funded all necessary supplies themselves, buying brushes, gloves, and sponges, while each of the women also brought whatever they could from their own homes, such as tissues, towels, and even brooms.
Describing the early stages of the work, Haneen explains how the team approached the task.
"On the first day, before moving a single stone, we held a one-hour training session. I taught them what to document, what to excavate and how to take safety precautions," Haneen tells The New Arab. " I instructed them to isolate books that were covered in ash or stuck together and to hand them to me personally so I could handle them with extreme care. We haven't moved to full restoration yet; what we are doing is urgent 'first aid' and emergency response," she explains. A race to preserve a vanishing archive The team has since been providing 'first aid' to all surviving manuscripts, spanning jurisprudence, poetry, literature and history. They began this work on 29 January 2025, and the timeline remains open-ended.
"This mission is larger than any single organisation," Haneen says.
For now, the focus remains on emergency measures, as full restoration is impossible due to a lack of resources and essential chemicals.
"We need a 70 percent concentration of alcohol. The healthcare system has collapsed, and I have been waiting for six months for someone to provide the alcohol needed to separate fused and mouldy manuscripts through a delicate 'surgical' process," she shares.
"I recently obtained only 40 ml, which I used to work on three sets, but I still have more than 30 sets requiring treatment. This work is expected to continue for the next 20 years," she explains.
Although the team secured a temporary storage site, it was later bombed. Despite this, they have no choice but to continue using what remains.
The original library is currently inaccessible and requires sealing, ventilation, sterilisation, and extensive re-sorting before any materials can safely be returned.
Reflecting on the wider impact, Haneen says: "We are the children of this city, which has endured a genocide affecting people, stone, trees and even the air. The library suffered alongside us and bore the burden. I tell the volunteers, 'Look at the amount of oppression etched onto every book; it has accumulated for years.' The books have grown heavy with moisture and mould."
Despite the despair in her voice, she maintains a sense of purpose.
"To work on rescuing something that almost survived, amidst the execution of culture and the burning of libraries, gives you hope in the middle of suffocating pain," she says.
However, when asked what people outside Gaza can do to support the mission, she gives a clear and serious answer.
"I might sound pessimistic if I say that I hope for nothing. The matter is greater than all of us, and the political reality forces hopelessness upon you," she says.
For Haneen, pursuing a PhD remains a goal, but the manuscripts come first, as she says, "I cannot depart until they have been saved."
Having already witnessed the loss of 80% of Gaza's documentary heritage , she and her team say they are prepared to volunteer for a lifetime to ensure the remaining archives find a dignified home.
As she puts it: "We need a place that protects this legacy so that those who come a hundred years from now can see it." Tala Halawa is a Palestinian journalist, media trainer, and lecturer with 15+ years in storytelling, podcasts, editorial leadership, and multi-genre content creation Follow her on Instagram: @ talahalawa