GAZA(Palestine Foundation Information Center ) The Palestinian Ministry of Endowment and Religious Affairs said on Monday that Israel’s ongoing genocidal war in Gaza has destroyed places of worship, cemeteries, religious institutions, endowment properties, and cultural heritage that form an essential part of the community’s social and spiritual fabric.
Anwar Abu Shaweesh, the ministry’s director general, said the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) violated all sanctities and international humanitarian laws, causing damages to religious and endowment properties estimated at more than $500 million.
According to the ministry, out of Gaza’s 1,244 mosques, 1,160 were targeted. At least 909 mosques were completely flattened to rubble, while 251 others sustained severe damage rendering them unusable. Three churches in Gaza City were also destroyed.
Abu Shaweesh told Al Jazeera Net that the destruction of mosques disrupted Friday and daily prayers, as well as Quran memorization programs. In response, the ministry, with support from Islamic organizations and donors worldwide, established more than 500 temporary prayer sites across Gaza, including in displacement camps, to ensure the call to prayer and communal worship continued despite the ongoing war.
The IOF also desecrated the dead, targeting 40 cemeteries out of 60 in Gaza. Twenty-two were completely destroyed and 18 partially damaged. Abu Shaweesh said the IOF went as far as exhuming graves, stealing bodies of martyrs, and desecrating corpses in what he described as “barbaric and inhumane acts.”
The destruction extended to 646 endowment properties, harming factories, workshops, and businesses that operated within them. Losses from these properties alone are estimated at more than $30 million.
The war has also prevented Gaza’s residents from performing Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages for two consecutive years. Before the war, more than 3,500 Gazans traveled annually for Hajj and tens of thousands for Umrah.
Abu Shaweesh further noted that nearly 30 Islamic education and outreach institutions, including the Islamic Da’wah College and several religious schools, were targeted, depriving thousands of students and beneficiaries of vital services.
