2025/01/01 by Jo Kelcey, Anne Irfan · 3 voices
Social Sciences · #Agency (philosophy) #Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography #Context (archaeology) #Genocide #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Palestine #Palestinian refugees #Peacebuilding and International Security #Refugee #Resistance (ecology) #Syrian refugees
paper · doi:10.1093/hwj/dbaf024
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract Israel’s genocide in Gaza has entailed extensive attacks on Palestinian heritage and history, including institutional archives which preserve historical documents, like that of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). In this article, we trace how a small team of UNRWA staff successfully resisted these attacks by rescuing the agency’s archival materials and transferring them out of Gaza. We situate their efforts within the decades-long context of Palestinian resistance against Israeli erasure of their national history. In the process, we also engage with broader questions about the meaning, ownership, and preservation of archival collections.