Study on Palestinian Audiovisual Heritage

Study on Palestinian Audiovisual Heritage
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Study on Palestinian Audiovisual Heritage

Study on Palestinian Audiovisual Heritage

The Institute for Palestine Studies has recently released "The Palestinian Audiovisual Heritage: Origin, Dispersion, and Digital Preservation…Preliminary Studies and Future Aspirations" by Author Bashar Shamout.

In this book, the author seeks to shed light on the rich audiovisual heritage of Palestine "aiming at preserving it with modern techniques, and documenting the collective Palestinian memory facing constant threats amid the hard political and life conditions the Palestinian people live."

The book discusses the topic on three levels: The origin of the audiovisual materials, the places of different collections dispersed in many archives around the world, and how to access them, in addition to some technical fundamentals used in the field of digitization in order to provide help for the people working in this field in the Arab region.

In addition to the objective research based on the digital archival science, the book highlights some of the major causes linked to the nonstop and deliberate attempts of Israeli institutions to conceal the Palestinian identity, kill the collective memory of the Palestinian people, and dominate it.

It also objectively discusses the looting and loss of audiovisual materials in Beirut following the Israeli invasion in 1982. These materials are of great cultural and historical value, as they were inspired by the resistance journey of the Palestine Liberation Organization since its establishment.



UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
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UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File

The Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, has been put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites in danger due to the war in Gaza, the body said Friday.
UNESCO said the site, which dates back to the fourth century, had been put on the endangered list at the demand of Palestinian authorities and cited the "imminent threats" it faced.
"It's the only recourse to protect the site from destruction in the current context," Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, told AFP, referring to the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
In December, the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict decided to grant "provisional enhanced protection" -- the highest level of immunity established by the 1954 Hague Convention -- to the site.
UNESCO had then said it was "already concerned about the state of conservation of sites, before October 7, due to the lack of adequate policies to protect heritage and culture" in Gaza.
The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.