Left: A Palestinian schoolgirl in Gaza City passes by the principle entrance to Pasha’s Palace in 2019 because the minaret of the Omari Mosque is seen within the background. Right: Palestinians spend a Ramadan fasting day in 2019 studying the Quran contained in the Omari Mosque.

Khalil Hamra/AP Images for NPR

disguise caption

toggle caption

Khalil Hamra/AP Images for NPR

Left: A Palestinian schoolgirl in Gaza City passes by the principle entrance to Pasha’s Palace in 2019 because the minaret of the Omari Mosque is seen within the background. Right: Palestinians spend a Ramadan fasting day in 2019 studying the Quran contained in the Omari Mosque.

Khalil Hamra/AP Images for NPR

TEL AVIV, Israel — The Omari Mosque, Gaza’s most iconic landmark and oldest mosque stretching again centuries, has been largely destroyed in an Israeli strike, Gaza City officers and eyewitnesses say.

An Israeli official, who spoke to NPR on situation of anonymity to supply a preliminary evaluation, confirmed the strike and stated the mosque grounds contained a tunnel shaft utilized by militants, and that Hamas fighters from the elite Nukhba battalion had commonly used the mosque for canopy.

Destroyed by earthquakes and conquests, and rebuilt many occasions over historical past, the mosque had a storied historical past incorporating many spiritual traditions. NPR visited the mosque in 2019 on a tour of Gaza’s cultural landmarks with an area information.

Now Gaza’s central mosque, with its blue-carpeted flooring and stained glass home windows, is unrecognizable.

Images revealed Friday by an area Gaza information website and the Gaza City municipality present the mosque’s roof demolished and the principle corridor lined in rubble, with some arched partitions and a broken, however nonetheless intact, minaret.

Israel says its intention is to get rid of Hamas in Gaza so it would not perform one other assault like its Oct. 7 assault that killed some 1,200 individuals in southern Israel. The army’s ensuing bombardment of Gaza has killed greater than 17,000 individuals, Gaza well being officers say, and rendered a lot of Gaza’s historic core a wasteland.

Mixed non secular traditions

The Omari Mosque was initially a fifth century Byzantine church that was constructed over a extra historic temple. It was transformed right into a mosque within the seventh century, then a Crusader church within the eleventh century, and again to a mosque within the thirteenth century.

The architectural components of the Crusader church have been nonetheless obvious within the modern-day mosque, and an etching of a Jewish menorah on a mosque column, believed to have been initially a part of an historic synagogue, was as soon as documented, and was destroyed in latest many years.

The Israeli army on Friday and Saturday known as on residents of the neighborhood close to the mosque to go away the world to flee the combating, however many have stayed.

During a lull in fight between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters on Friday, Mustafa Shahawani, 22, ventured out with a gaggle of residents who reside close to the mosque to survey the harm to the neighborhood. He discovered the standard gold market, for getting and promoting gold, destroyed, and was shocked when he stumbled on the mosque subsequent door.

“The mosque is now a hole,” he advised NPR on a patchy cellphone line. “This is where we held holiday prayers, Ramadan prayers. All our memories were there.”

He stayed for only a second and rushed again residence, as lively combating resumed.

Surviving on rice and water

Most residents of Gaza City fled weeks in the past as Israeli troops invaded, however tens of hundreds are estimated to have remained there and in the remainder of north Gaza, together with Shahawani. He would not suppose there’s anyplace safer in Gaza to go.

An unemployed college graduate who studied accounting, he’s sheltering in his residence together with his grandmother, who’s in her 80s.

“She cries every day,” he stated.

During a weeklong cease-fire, he was in a position to stroll via components of Gaza City. He described seeing huge destruction; almost each residence was hit. He noticed many our bodies within the streets. He can not cease excited about the our bodies of a girl and youngster he noticed on his stroll.

He walked alongside the beachfront, and found the now-destroyed Deira Hotel, a Gaza landmark the place he used to spend evenings with buddies. The close by Roots Hotel, a hangout for locals and overseas guests, was additionally hit, he stated.

Since the cease-fire collapsed on Dec. 1, combating close to his home has intensified and he has barely left residence. He and his grandmother drink one cup of water and eat one meal of rice a day. He is craving cheese. It’s been a month and a half since he took a bathe.

“There is no hope in life. We saw horrible things, and just want to live in peace,” Shahawani stated. “It’s not necessary for kids and women to die.”

Residents had been burying their lifeless within the yard subsequent to his home. They ran out of house a number of days in the past, he stated.

Anas Baba contributed from Rafah, Gaza.