Cultural restoration

With 70,000 dead, countless injured, hundreds of thousands of people homeless and whole districts laid to waste, the task of rebuilding Gaza is almost beyond comprehension.

But at a handful of sites where the enclave's most valuable historical monuments have been severely damaged, workers are already busy with shovels, trying to dig out the few surviving remnants of the past.

Those include Gaza's most important cultural site, the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza's Old City, which Israeli forces struck during the conflict to destroy what they said was a tunnel under its grounds used by fighters. Palestinians say there is no sign of such a tunnel there, and blame Israel for destroying the enclave's religious and cultural heritage.