TEHRAN – Archaeologists evacuated nearly three decades of finds from a Gaza City building on Wednesday after Israeli authorities warned it would be targeted in an air strike, officials said.

“This was a high-risk operation, carried out in an extremely dangerous context for everyone involved – a real last-minute rescue,” said Olivier Poquillon, director of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF), which stored the relics, the Guardian reported.

The Israeli army did not confirm issuing the warning when asked by AFP, but several sources said France, UNESCO and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem had secured a brief reprieve that allowed most artefacts to be removed from the storehouse, located on the ground floor of a residential tower.

“With almost no international actors left on the ground, no infrastructure, nothing functioning, we had to improvise transport, labor and logistics,” Poquillon said.

The evacuation was conducted in secrecy, he added, with priority given to avoiding risks to human life as Israeli operations continued in Gaza’s largest urban center.

The collection contained about 180 cubic meters of finds from Gaza’s five main archaeological sites, including the fourth-century Saint Hilarion monastery, a UNESCO world heritage site. EBAF said the monastery’s mosaics remained exposed and vulnerable to damage.

“Gaza has an extremely ancient heritage, very precious for the region, showing the succession and coexistence of peoples, cultures and religions,” Poquillon said.

One of Gaza’s two museums has been destroyed and the other heavily damaged since the conflict began nearly two years ago. Researchers told AFP that the EBAF storehouse was the only significant repository of artefacts left in the territory.

Gaza’s archaeological work restarted after the 1993 Oslo accords, with digs at the ancient Greek port of Anthedon and a Roman necropolis. Excavations halted after Hamas took power in 2007 and Israel imposed a blockade, resuming later with support from the British Council and French NGO Première Urgence Internationale (PUI).

With ceasefire talks stalled and Israel considering a full takeover of Gaza, archaeologists said prospects for future excavations were limited. UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites using satellite imagery, including the 13th-century Pasha’s Palace, but has not carried out a full inventory.

“We saved a large part, but in a rescue you always lose things, and you always face painful choices,” said René Elter, an archaeologist affiliated with EBAF and scientific coordinator for PUI.

Elter said the depot was especially valuable because its collections had been systematically classified. “Many items have been broken or lost, but they had been photographed or drawn, so the scientific information is preserved. Perhaps that will be the only trace that remains of Gaza’s archaeology – in books, publications, libraries,” he said.

AM