‘One of the oldest urban centres on the planet’: Gaza’s rich history in ruins. The territory’s ancient heritage has too often been ignored. As we mourn incalculable human losses, learning about its past can help us better understand the present- William Dalrymple in The Guardian

The bombed-out Great Mosque of Gaza, once a crusader church, in January 2024. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

William Dalrymple

Fri 17 Oct 2025

"As a ceasefire brings a measure of peace to the Dresden-like hellscape that Gaza has become, it is time to take stock of all that has been lost. The human cost of what the UN commission of inquiry recognises as a genocide is of course incalculable, but fewer are aware of how much rich history and archaeology has also been destroyed in these horrific months. This is bolstered by the widespread assumption that Gaza was little more than a huge refugee camp built on a recently settled portion of desert. That is quite wrong. In reality Gaza it is one of the oldest urban centres on the planet.

Golda Meir famously declared that “there was no such thing as Palestinians”, but the reality is very different. Palestine is actually one of humanity’s oldest toponyms, and records of a people named after it are as old as literacy itself. Palestine was an established name for the coast between Egypt and Phoenicia since at least the second millennium BCE: the ancient Egyptian texts refer to “Peleset” from about 1450BCE, Assyrians inscriptions to the “Palashtu” c800BCE, and Herodotus c480BCE to “Παλαιστίνη” (Palaistinē). This was all brought home to me as I worked, with my co-presenter Anita Anand, on a 12-part series on Gaza’s history for the Empire podcast.

Gaza was first referenced as a strategic prize in an Egyptian inscription of Thutmose III in the 15th century BCE, where it is referred to as Ghazzati. It is also one of the most fought-over and contested spaces: for more than 4,000 years this area has been an ethnically mixed crossroads, linking Africa with Asia, and the desert with the Mediterranean. It has also been a crucial strategic and economic hub: an often incredibly rich and prosperous port from which the spices, incense, perfumes and wines of western Asia were exported to Greece and Rome, the end of the caravan route from Arabia via Petra. As well as a fortress guarding the strategically crucial route leading from the eastern Mediterranean coastline to Egypt.

Travellers who visited Gaza over the centuries have often remarked on the fecundity of its vegetation and the diversity of its agriculture, both of which are the products of its underground waters and the Mediterranean climate. It is this that enabled Gaza to grow the excellent grapes that for many centuries were made into a much celebrated sweet wine, the Château d’Yquem of the classical world. An exhibition of the salvaged antiquities of Gaza currently showing at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris opens with a fabulous display of the distinctive “torpedo jars” in which the Gazans exported their wine. As late as the sixth century AD, these amphorae were reaching both Merovingian France and Anglo-Saxon England..." READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/17/one-of-the-oldest-urban-centres-on-the-planet-gazas-rich-history-in-ruins

 AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD QUOTES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]   

Empire: The History of Gaza, PODCAST presented by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, is available online https://www.playpodcast.net/podcast/empire/

The Universal Declaration is a roadmap, helping to end wars, heal divisions and promote lives of peace and dignity for all. Learn more & join the movement to help achieve a world of freedom, equality & justice for all:

The Universal Declaration is a roadmap, helping to end wars, heal divisions and promote lives of peace and dignity for all. Learn more & join the movement to help achieve a world of freedom, equality & justice for all:

 

"The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has long inspired art of different sorts across the genres. And for the smallest art, that of postage stamps, that is also the case. The Universal Postal Union has collected numerous examples of official postage stamps that have been part of UDHR celebrations over the decades. As part of World Post Day, we offer a showcase of some of the past small artworks celebrating the UDHR."  https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights-75/human-rights-75-countdown

Did you know that human rights is the literal cornerstone of the United Nations? When the first Secretary-General of the United Nations, Trygve Lie, laid the cornerstone of the New York building that was to house the United Nations, it contained a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights have always been the foundation of the work of the UN and now you know why.  

In February 1947, a group consisting of Eleanor Roosevelt (USA), Pen-Chun Chang (China) and Charles Malik (Lebanon) began drafting the International Bill of Human Rights, which later turned into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The drafting committee was expanded to include: William Hodgson (Australia), Hernan Santa Cruz (Chile), René Cassin (France), Alexandre Bogomolov (USSR), Charles Dukes (UK), and John P. Humphrey (Canada).

Human rights are rights we have simply because we exist as human beings - they are not granted by any state. These universal rights are inherent to us all, regardless of nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language, or any other status. They range from the most fundamental - the right to life - to those that make life worth living, such as the rights to food, education, work, health, and liberty.  

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, was the first legal document to set out the fundamental human rights to be universally protected. The UDHR, which turns 75 on 10 December 2023, continues to be the foundation of all international human rights law. Its 30 articles provide the principles and building blocks of current and future human rights conventions, treaties and other legal instruments. Learn more and get to know your rights.

Women have left an indelible mark on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Through their pushing particular rights to appear as articles or via changing the very language of the text, women have influenced the shape of the Declaration since its inception. Their work made it the universalizing document that it has remained. Eleanor Roosevelt is certainly the most prominent woman on the Drafting Committee and regarded her role in the crafting and securing adoption of the Declaration as her greatest achievement. She was recognized an outspoken champion of human rights, with the political and cultural knowledge to secure them in a divided world. However, there were other women who also helped to contribute to the document, especially three non-western women: Three non-western female delegates had a particularly strong influence on the Declaration, according to Adami. They were Minerva Bernardino from the Dominican Republic, Hansa Mehta from India, and Begum Shaista Ikramullah from Pakistan. Get to know more about them and the other women of the Universal Declaration.

If there was ever a moment to rekindle the hope of human rights for every person, it is now. The 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been an opportunity for reflection and reinvigoration of the world’s most ground-breaking international commitments. Now is the time to lend your voice to the movements, communities, and countries across the globe pledging the difference they will make for human rights. Learn more about the Human Rights 75 initiative. What pledge will you make?

Human Rights 75 Initiative