Destruction of Archives and Property Records Lays Ground for Land Theft in Gaza

Por Ohood Nassar — Truthout

Families in Gaza fear they may lose their property rights as deeds get destroyed and buried under the rubble.

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Inside a rented house in the Saraya area, west of Gaza City, 50-year-old Rami Karaja sat talking about a home he can no longer reach and documents he can no longer retrieve.

At the end of April 2025, Karaja’s home in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood was bombed. Among the many things his family lost are the property deeds to the house, which are still buried beneath the rubble.

“I cannot return to my home to retrieve the documents because the house is in an area under Israeli control,” Karaja said. “The papers proving my ownership remain beneath the rubble of the destroyed house.”

Amid widespread destruction of housing across Gaza, Karaja is not alone. According to a UN report released in February 2026, at least 92 percent of housing units in Gaza were estimated to have been destroyed or damaged between October 2023 and October 2025, while more than 90 percent of the population was displaced during the same period.

“I don’t know when I will be able to return, what the place will look like when I do, or how I will prove my ownership if I begin rebuilding my home,” Karaja said.

Karaja fears that determining the boundaries of his home and land will be difficult after both the loss of his documents and so much destruction to the property.

“If the Israeli forces leave Shuja’iyya and I return to my home and begin rebuilding, I will face a problem because I no longer have the property documents with me,” he said.

He says the destruction of so many homes has made it more difficult to determine land boundaries, and he fears this could eventually lead to disputes between families.

But his concerns go beyond the documents themselves.

Karaja’s home is located in a so-called “red zone,” which Palestinians cannot freely access. As Israel deepens and expands its control over these parts of Gaza, Palestinians like Karaja continue to be denied access to their land.

For families who have lost both their homes and property documents, the fear is not simply about losing a piece of paper. It is about losing the ability to establish a legal connection to their land at a time when they cannot even reach it.

These fears have grown as Israel has expanded the areas under its control and deepened restrictions on movement and access within Gaza.

Karaja worries that that temporary military control could become a long-term reality.

“What frightens me most is that my home could be turned into an Israeli settlement,” he said.

A 2026 Gaza Strip Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, prepared by the World Bank, the United Nations, and the European Union, found that the destruction of land administration offices caused significant damage to property records, digital files, and surveying archives. It estimated that around 80 percent of the markers defining the boundaries of 218,000 properties had been destroyed, making it more difficult to re-establish property boundaries and verify ownership.

The assessment also found that by mid-2025, more than 65 percent of property owners had lost their ownership documents.

The assessment warned that the combination of lost official records and personal documents, together with restrictions on access to land, had significantly increased uncertainty over property rights and could complicate the return of residents and the reconstruction of homes and agricultural land.

For Karaja, then, it is not only about one house.

“I fear what could happen when the physical evidence of ownership disappears at the same time as I am prevented from accessing my land,” he said.

The widespread destruction in Gaza extends beyond the walls and roofs of people’s homes. Institutions and archives that preserve the records of the city and the memory of its residents have also suffered severe damage.

The Central Archives of Gaza City were destroyed during the war. According to a PEN America report, the archives contained around 110,000 historical documents, including maps, contracts, land ownership documents, photographs, and other materials. The report quotes Gaza City Mayor Yahya al-Sarraj: “The Central Archives building was directly hit, causing the burning of historically significant documents dating back over 150 years.”

But documents are not lost only inside institutions.

Through repeated displacement, property documents have been among the belongings families try to save before leaving their homes.

Documents can disappear inside homes that are bombed, burn in fires, or remain buried beneath the rubble.

I am one of those who have experienced what it means to lose these papers.

In mid-2025, my family received a phone call warning us that our home in Jabalia would be bombed within minutes.

There was no time to think or gather our belongings.

We left in a hurry, leaving everything behind.

My mother kept our essential documents in a small bag – identity cards, birth certificates, and papers proving our ownership of the land and the house.

After years of repeated wars and displacement, she understood only too well how important that bag was. She always kept it near the door so that it could be grabbed quickly if we were forced to leave again.

My mother would always tell us: “At any moment, the house could be bombed or destroyed and turned into rubble. These papers may be the only thing left to prove that it once belonged to us.”

She repeatedly warned us not to forget the bag, reminding us that it was the most important thing to save if we were ever forced to evacuate.

But that day, fear left no room for calm thought.

We left in a rush.

Amid the chaos, we forgot the bag.

We could not go back for it.

We left it behind, along with documents that were not merely pieces of paper to my family. They carried our names, our birth records and proof of our ownership of what had once been our home and land.

My mother would always tell us: “At any moment, the house could be bombed or destroyed and turned into rubble. These papers may be the only thing left to prove that it once belonged to us.”

At that moment, I understood another dimension of war.

Sometimes war does not only take your home. It also takes the document that proves the home was once yours.

Losing papers may seem less significant than losing an entire house, but for a displaced family, documents can become an important legal link to the place where they once lived.

The house may one day be rebuilt, but proving ownership can become more complicated when documents, official records, and the markers defining property boundaries disappear at the same time.

When neighborhoods are destroyed, land records are lost, and residents remain unable to access their properties, reconstruction may take place without the people who lived there being able to prove their rights to those properties.

For me and others who have lost access to their homes, this raises fears that areas emptied of their residents by the war and kept under Israeli control for prolonged periods could undergo permanent changes in land use or status.

Sometimes war does not only take your home. It also takes the document that proves the home was once yours.

The 2026 assessment by the World Bank, UN, and EU notes that the loss of housing and land records and other documentation, together with fragmented legal frameworks, has undermined the protection of property rights and increased uncertainty over property tenure. It could also contribute to disputes over land use and inheritance.

The assessment called for rebuilding a modern and resilient land administration system capable of supporting reconstruction and protecting residents’ rights.

When these documents disappear, it is not only the information they contain that is lost. A part of a family’s official memory may disappear as well.

That is why rebuilding Gaza will not mean simply reconstructing homes and streets.

It will also require restoring records and archives, rebuilding land administration systems, re-establishing the boundaries of destroyed properties, and helping families recover the documents that prove their identities and rights.

The small bag placed beside the door was, for my mother, more than just a bag.

It was a way of preserving our identity, our memory and our right to the place where we had lived.

But when we were forced to leave, we left it behind.

Since that day, rubble has meant more to me than simply a destroyed home.

It also means a place beneath which our documents are buried, along with part of our family history and our right to prove that this place once belonged to us.

War does not leave behind only destroyed cities and demolished homes. It also leaves a void in the records that preserve people’s memories and property rights.

In Gaza, one of the hardest parts of rebuilding may be remembering the city itself: where the homes once stood and who owned the land.

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Ohood Nassar is a journalist and writer from northern Gaza. Her work has been published in Prism, The New Arab, We Are Not Numbers, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Deep Dive, The Progressive, Washington Report, and Al Jazeera.

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Fonte: Truthout