Why Israel continues to attack religious sites and symbols in Gaza

Last weekend, new videos on social media showed Israeli soldiers desecrating the Bani Saleh Mosque in Gaza and tearing copies of the holy Quran, once again highlighting the Zionist state’s continued attack on Muslim religious places and symbols in its relentless war on Palestinians.

The Israeli assault on Islam’s holy book and mosques has evoked sharp condemnation from Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group defending Gaza against Israeli attacks.

"We strongly condemn the actions of Zionist soldiers burning copies of the Quran during their raid and desecration of the Bani Saleh Mosque in northern Gaza,” the group said in a statement on Telegram.

"The burning of the Quran, the desecration, targeting, and destruction of mosques confirms the extremist nature of this entity and its soldiers, who are filled with hatred and criminality, and their fascist behaviour towards everything related to the identity and sanctities of the nation," said the Hamas statement.

In previous statements, the Palestinian resistance group had urged UNESCO to save religious heritage and historical buildings in Gaza, where Israel’s indiscriminate bombing has killed more than 40,000 civilians, mostly children and women.

Experts see the Israeli assaults on historical sites as a “cultural genocide”, which is part of its “genocidal campaign” on Gaza’s human population.

Bombing heritage

Recently emerged drone footage shows a deliberate Israeli airstrike in December on the Grand Mosque of Gaza, one of the oldest Muslim places of worship standing for many centuries.

The mosque’s history goes back to the 7th century AD, when Muslims conquered Jerusalem and Palestine, including Gaza, from the Roman Empire, making them part of the Islamic caliphate. Ibn Battuta, a famous 14th-century Muslim traveller and writer, called it "the Beautiful Mosque."

Many Gaza residents believe that “Israel is destroying everything beautiful” in their city, preventing its population “from finding some consolation”, Dotan Halevy, historian and post-doc fellow at the Van Leer Institute, told Haaretz, an Israeli publication, in a December interview.

According to Gaza authorities, to date, Israel has destroyed more than 600 mosques and three churches. Israelis partially damaged more than 200 mosques, besides destroying dozens of heritage sites.

Targeting religious sites is considered a war crime under international humanitarian law, but Israel has long enjoyed Western impunity for its war crimes.

Here are the two most historically significant religious sites of Gaza attacked by Israel:

The Grand Mosque of Gaza

The mosque is the oldest and largest Muslim place of worship in Gaza with a very interesting history, which dates back to the Philistines, the ancient rulers of the city and much of Palestine, and the avowed enemies of the then-Jews.

About thirteen centuries ago, at the site of the present mosque, there stood a Byzantine-era Christian church, which was, in turn, built on the site of a Philistine paganist temple.

The church was transformed into a mosque after the Muslim conquest of Gaza and called the Great Mosque of Gaza. Muslims also called it the Great Omari Mosque after the second Rashidun Caliph, Omar, a leading companion of Prophet Muhammad, in the 7th century.

The religious site has long been important to modern Israeli leadership due to its connection to the ancient Philistines. Though the Philistines are not related to Palestinians, according to experts, their name has an etymological connection with the word Palestine.

According to the Bible, Samson the Israelite, one of the leading patriarchs of the Jews and a leading enemy of the Philistines, died dramatically with the Philistines in their temple in Gaza, where the mosque stood until its destruction by modern Israelis during the ongoing war.

Local tradition believes Samson was buried under the Philistine temple.

The Bible says that the Israelite hero fought with the Philistines, but his enemies captured him through a trick and kept him captive in their temple in Gaza. Seeing his failure as a result of his personal shortcomings, Samson decided to make a last-ditch effort to make the columns of the Philistine temple collapse to defeat the city's ancient holders. “Let me die with Philistines,” he said before he died in Gaza.

Omer Bartov, a leading Israeli scholar, recently argued in a comprehensive article that the story of Samson the Israelite might be relevant to what the modern Israeli leadership is now doing in Gaza. In a Haaretz article published last week, a former top Israeli general has also referred to the story saying that Netanyahu chose to “die with the Philistines” in his current Gaza campaign by not designating a clear political objective.

Bartov said that the Samson story has resonated with the Zionist leadership since the 1950s and potentially earlier. In 1956, Moshe Dayan, a top Israeli general, who played a critical role in the 1967 war, gave a speech with a veiled reference to Samson after a 1956 Palestinian attack on Nahal Oz kibbutz from Gaza, Bartov wrote.

Dayan used the Samson story as a lesson for the country’s Jewish population of possible threats the Palestinian enclave might present, according to Bartov. The same Nahal Oz was also targeted by Hamas in its October 7 attack.

Church of Saint Porphyrius

This Christian worship site is the oldest church in Gaza, which has also been targeted by Israeli strikes at least twice since October 7, damaging some of its quarters. The church has sheltered both Christian and Muslim Palestinians during Israel’s war on Gaza.

An October Israeli attack hit two halls of the Greek Orthodox church, leading to the collapse of at least one building and killing more than ten civilians. The attack faced condemnation from across the globe. In a statement, the Greek Greek Orthodox Patriarchate said that “targeting churches and its affiliated institutions” is “a war crime that cannot be ignored”.

“We condemn this unconscionable attack on a sacred compound and call upon the world community to enforce protections in Gaza for sanctuaries of refuge, including hospitals, schools, and houses of worship,” said The World Council of Churches.

The Gaza church, named after 5th-century bishop Saint Porphyrius, was originally built around 425 AD. But its present building was constructed by Crusaders in the mid-12th century.

The church also hosts the tomb of Saint Porphyrius in its northeastern corner.