As part of its ongoing efforts to safeguard tangible heritage, the Palestinian Museum has launched a national emergency initiative to protect cultural heritage, in response to the unprecedented escalation in the targeting of Palestinian heritage since October 2023. The initiative is supported by the Jabara Fund (Linda Jacobs), the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), and the organisation Cultural Emergency.
The initiative comes amid growing risks threatening cultural institutions and collections in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, and aims to protect heritage collections and enhance the readiness of cultural institutions to respond effectively to emergency situations.
The initiative focuses primarily on developing practical plans for the evacuation of heritage collections and their safe handling when under threat. This includes rapid evacuation procedures, safe packing and transport, and preventive conservation of ethnographic and archival materials, in order to reduce losses and protect collections in emergency conditions.
In parallel, the initiative places strong emphasis on digitisation as a key tool for safeguarding cultural memory and ensuring continued access to heritage content, even in cases where the original materials are lost or destroyed. These efforts include establishing digitisation units at key locations in the West Bank, as well as training cultural institutions to digitise and archive their collections in accordance with international standards.
The initiative also includes the implementation of specialised training courses in the conservation of heritage materials, covering the conservation of paper and documents, and the conservation of traditional garments and textiles. This aims to build sustainable local capacities and to form the nucleus of a qualified national cadre capable of intervening during crises and emergencies, and contributing to the long-term protection of endangered heritage.
