Protection Urged for Gaza Cultural Heritage

Word is spreading about the February 18 statement (PDF file) of the International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS) deploring the loss of human lives and the destruction of cultural heritage that has recently taken place in the Palestinian Territories and the State of Israel, in particular in the Gaza area. All five member groups of ICBS (the International Council on Archives, International Council of Museums, International Council on Monuments and Sites, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations) have disseminated the statement; additionally, the International Council of Museums issued an assessment of damage to museums in Gaza.

Headquartered in the Netherlands and founded in 1996 “to work to protect the world’s cultural heritage threatened by wars and natural disasters,” ICBS is calling on all parties involved in the conflict “to be respectful of the cultural property in the region” but is taking “no position on any other issue relating to conflicts in the region.”

Signed by ICBS President Julien Anfruns, the statement goes on to say that there have been reports that two municipal libraries in Amoghazi and Juhur-el-Deek have been completely destroyed and that the libraries of the Islamic University and the Tal el-Hawa branch of al-Aqsa University are severely damaged. “Sadly we have to assume that civil records have been destroyed in the violence of the recent period,” Anfruns notes.

ALA adopted a resolution at its January Midwinter Meeting in Denver calling for the protection of libraries and archives in Gaza and Israel and urging the U.S. government to support the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield in upholding the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.

The ICBS statement was released almost one year after the February 22, 2008, arrest by Palestinian Authority law enforcement of several Army of Islam members suspected in the fire-bombing of the YMCA library in Gaza City. The attack severely damaged the building and destroyed most of the 10,000-book collection.

Posted on March 16, 2009. Discuss.

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