Their Lost Jerusalem

World citizens of today who can stomach gut-wrenching details, imagery of devastation and death do recall that 70 per cent of Gaza's population is composed of refugees of the 1948 Nakba, when an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes by Zionist militias. What the relentless bombings are reviving are not just the memories of the Nakba 75 years ago, but brutalities and destruction in the ancient lands over the last 3000 years. Jerusalem itself, the Zion of song and longing in Babylon, is perhaps the single most bitterly contested patch of land in human history, wrote Neil Mac Gregor

-  Neil MacGregor

Historical events through 2023 and 2024, and the shaping of politics and diplomacy, are providing intriguing insights into our world, bridging the past with a violent, volatile present. Widely reported in the global media is the mind-numbing, incessant and most intense bombing campaigns of Israel in Gaza. Israel said it struck at least 12,000 targets from 7 October to 1 November 2023, not sparing hospitals, schools, mosques, churches. Al Jazeera reported that by 25 October, just 19 days into the assault, Israeli attacks killed at least 7,028 people, including 2,913 children, in Gaza. Residents, including children, who had taken shelter in the Church of Saint Porphyrius, were killed in the bombings. Saint Porphyrius in Gaza's Old City is considered the third-oldest church in the world. Built in 425 CE, it offered sanctuary to many Christian and Muslim residents of Gaza.

Over the last 20 years, since 2003, the axis of destruction has been shifting when the Gulf War engulfed the entire region, with brief intense conflicts between Iraq and combined forces of the US and UK, and later, the US-led occupation of Iraq with the aim of dethroning Saddam Hussein. The mysterious 'weapons of mass destruction' and the decadence of Saddam's long reign became common knowledge; what is lesser known is the story of saving the cultural heritage in the aftermath of military actions in Iraq, once the ancient land of Mesopotamia, a rich and powerful civilization which flourished 5,000 years ago. The world's first great cities emerged here, becoming major centres of knowledge, learning, trade and commerce.