War Is Erasing Cultural Heritage From Ukraine to Gaza. Justice Is Still Rare.
August was a punishing month for Ukraine. Russian aerial attacks surged, with thousands of drones launched. Kyiv was battered, and so were the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa. Amid the destruction and loss of life, Odesa reported damage to six UNESCO-protected sites, including the salmon-pink 19th-century Alexandru Sturdza House.
Once again, the question surfaced: Why is it so difficult to hold actors accountable for destroying buildings and objects of real cultural significance?
In just one recent month, Ukraine's Ministry of Culture recorded 148 cultural heritage sites as damaged or destroyed, including sites in Odesa.
Several Ukrainian activist groups have sought accountability by filing complaints with the International Criminal Court against Russia over cultural destruction and looting. No indictments have followed.
Bijan Rouhani, a senior researcher with the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project, argues that the legal framework may look strong on paper but almost inevitably falls short in practice.
“No state actor has ever been tried for this offense,” he said. “The obstacle is no longer evidence. We have satellite imagery, remote sensing and monitoring teams. The obstacle is jurisdiction and political will.”
As conflicts multiply around the world, that question is becoming more urgent: Can effective action stop the damage—or ensure accountability when it occurs?
Ukraine is only one of many recent wars that have exposed the disastrous impact of conflict on cultural heritage.
Gaza: 'When your past is destroyed, you have no present'
Tareq Abu Dayyeh sells craftwork, souvenirs and antiquities in Gaza. The Great Omari Mosque appears on many of the items he sells. To him, the mosque represents the very identity of Gaza, tracing the territory's history through its many incarnations: ancient pagan temple, Byzantine church, seventh-century mosque, Crusader cathedral and then mosque again.
The Great Omari Mosque was all but destroyed in an Israeli strike in 2023. The Israeli military said the strike was targeting Hamas.
Now, Dayyeh says his heart breaks every time he sees the ruins. “When your past is destroyed, you have no present,” he said.
The war in Gaza has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and an estimated 200,000 buildings have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli bombardment. But even amid overwhelming death and devastation, cultural losses cut deep.
That sentiment has been expressed throughout history by people living through war. In Sudan, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran, alarms have been raised again and again.
A widening trail of destruction
More than 100 sites in Iran are reported to have been damaged during the air war launched by the United States and Israel in February. They include the UNESCO-listed Golestan Palace in Tehran and Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan.
Sudan's civil war has further endangered one of the ancient wonders of the world: the Meroe Pyramids, built during the flourishing civilization of the Kingdom of Kush. UNESCO, which designated Meroe a World Heritage Site in 2011, has warned that the fighting has halted all preservation work there, leaving fragile ancient structures exposed to erosion from encroaching sand and vegetation.
In response to the vast destruction of World War II, the first international treaty devoted exclusively to protecting cultural heritage during armed conflict was adopted in The Hague in 1954. It applies to monuments and architecture, but also to works of art and books. It requires states to safeguard and respect cultural property and refrain from actions that might endanger it.
Since the Hague Convention, several steps have been taken to strengthen protections. A Second Protocol in 1999 said any site granted enhanced protection because of its immense cultural significance must not be made a military target—even if it is being used in a way that has turned it into a “military objective”—unless there is no other feasible way to end that use.
When the International Criminal Court was established in The Hague in 2002, part of its mandate was to bring accountability for deliberate attacks in war on buildings of religious, artistic and educational value, as well as historical monuments. Such attacks had been defined as war crimes.
But prosecutions have been complex and rare. So far, only one case has been successfully brought at the ICC. Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, a jihadist militant leader in Mali, was found guilty of directing attacks that destroyed mausoleums and a mosque in Timbuktu. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Rouhani says that without the full backing of major powers and a genuine commitment to international law and its enforcement, the world will keep watching the same devastating pattern repeat itself.
“For most governments, heritage is a secondary concern, unless it becomes useful for propaganda,” Rouhani said. “The Hague Convention requires states to build protection into their military rules and to respect cultural property abroad as well as at home. Looking at the scale of damage in recent conflicts, it is difficult to conclude that these obligations are taken seriously.”
In conflicts from Ukraine to Iran to Gaza, where schools and hospitals are treated by combatants as permissible military targets, how likely is it that a museum or a pile of ancient stones—however freighted with beauty, history and memory—will be spared?
Ukraine's cultural frontline
In an isolated spot in open countryside, a museum dedicated to the 18th-century Ukrainian philosopher and poet Hryhoriy Skovoroda was destroyed by Russian shelling during an overnight attack in 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike left him speechless. “Targeted strikes against museums—not even terrorists would think of this,” he said. “But this is the kind of army we are fighting against.”
The building was set ablaze and a caretaker was injured, but much of the collection had already been removed.
Joe Biden, then the U.S. president, said Russian President Vladimir Putin was not only trying to take over Ukraine but was “literally trying to wipe out the culture and identity of the Ukrainian people.”
That pattern has been repeated across much of the front line in Ukraine, where local organizations have worked with international groups to try to safeguard national heritage from Russian attack.
One international group playing a major role is the Aliph Foundation, established in Geneva in 2017 to protect and repair cultural heritage. Alexandra Fiebig, a project manager with Aliph, says the group has provided millions of dollars to Ukrainian museums scrambling to move their most valuable items to safety.
That has involved what she calls “heritage ambulances.” “These vehicles have specialized equipment and space, with specialized teams and equipment,” she said. “In the beginning, they were traveling a lot to affected museums that were damaged through military action.”
Now, she says, the teams also check on artifacts that were transported in great haste to safer places to make sure they remain in good condition.
Blue Shield International operates in multiple war zones, working with armed forces and local heritage officials so closely that it has become known as the Red Cross for culture. Dr. Emma Cunliffe, the group's head of operations, says Ukrainians are risking their lives to protect their heritage.
“They are taking great measures to document the damage even when they are risking their own lives to do it,” she said. “In fact, one of the things we really see is that the government is taking huge steps despite the many competing priorities and the struggles they are facing.”
Mosul's burned libraries
Other conflicts have seen civilians take similar measures to protect their culture. In February 2015, ISIS turned from hacking down ancient statues and artifacts in Mosul, northern Iraq, to ransacking the city's written heritage. Its fighters laid waste to treasured public libraries, burning the Central Library and destroying or stealing thousands of books—many of them rare manuscripts that told the story of the city.
“These were not simply books or shelves,” said Dr. Mohammed Jasim Mohammed al-Hamdani. “They represented decades of knowledge and research and formed an important part of the intellectual heritage of Mosul University and the wider community. Within days, everything was gone.”
The main library in Mosul has played a key role in his life—so much so that he is now its director. “Seeing it destroyed felt like losing a part of myself,” he said. “Many people in the city had a story connected to the University of Mosul, and therefore the loss felt very close to home. And this is why when that part of Mosul was liberated from ISIS, young people and old people rushed to the library to save what they could.”
The flip side of communities taking protection into their own hands is the looting of the same sites. This, too, is a byproduct of war that dates back to the dawn of history.
Cunliffe says understanding the reasons for looting—which can vary from place to place—is a necessary starting point. “That might then in turn result in greater sanctions, greater prosecutions to take it seriously as a threat,” she said. She added that it is important, if possible, to convey to local communities that by assisting looters, they are selling their own heritage.
In Iraq and Syria, both during and after the ISIS rampage, looting of priceless artifacts was carried out on an industrial scale. Precious objects were spirited out and trafficked abroad, including to the United States. A years-long investigation by the U.S. Justice Department traced smuggling routes and resulted in thousands of looted artifacts being returned to Iraq.
In Europe and elsewhere, coordinated multinational police and customs operations take place regularly, seizing large numbers of stolen antiquities and arresting some traffickers. But the trade remains highly lucrative, and the proliferation of conflicts provides ever more opportunities.
In Sudan, the national museum in Khartoum was stripped of its treasures in 2023 when it came under the control of one of the warring factions, the RSF, which loaded them onto trucks and left display rooms bare. As in other conflict zones such as Ukraine, specialized training has been provided for those trying to recover antiquities, with some success. But much of the museum's display—which told the story of the region over thousands of years—may have disappeared for good.
Palmyra's custodian and the limits of justice
The challenges of limiting the destruction and looting of cultural heritage are enormous. At the international or state level, regulations exist, but putting them into practice in a timely fashion is difficult enough—and often there is not even the will to try.
Local initiatives backed by organizations such as Aliph and Blue Shield International can make a difference on a small scale. But if—as seems the case right now—the chances of anyone facing consequences for destroying a heritage site are close to zero, then there is almost no real deterrent.
Of all the recent attempts to erase the cultural past embodied in stone, Palmyra in Syria still stands out. ISIS blew up temples there and might have done far worse if it had not been defeated.
One man became emblematic for standing up to them. For 40 years, the archaeologist Khaled al-Asaad had been the principal custodian of Palmyra. He was in his eighties when ISIS descended on the ancient city. They captured him and tortured him to try to find out where its most valuable artifacts had been hidden. When he refused to tell them, they beheaded him in a public square and hung his corpse from a traffic light.
Al-Asaad was celebrated across the world as a heroic defender of culture against the forces of darkness. He was awarded the Order of Civil Merit in Syria, and in Palmyra, a school was named in his honor. But nothing is free from political complications. Years later, under the new authorities in Syria, his name has been removed from the school.
Rouhani argues that what would change the calculation is not harsher sentences but a real prospect of being named. “Arrest warrants for the commanders who authorize these strikes, prosecutions in national courts under universal jurisdiction, and targeted sanctions on named individuals,” he said. “Those measures don't require a new treaty. They require states to be willing to use the instruments they already have, against allies as well as adversaries.”
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