Gazan researchers win UNESCO prize for manuscript rescue
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In Gaza, historian Abdul Latif Hashim and researcher Haneen Al-Amassi received the 2026 UNESCO/Jikji Memory of the World Prize for their work saving Palestinian documents and manuscripts.
The pair earned the $40,000 prize after an international jury reviewed a record 58 nominations. They led a team that rescued rare materials from damaged buildings, including the medieval Great Omari Mosque library, which sustained heavy damage in December 2023.
Hashim and Al-Amassi’s team preserved and digitised over 25,000 pages of documents from the Mamluk and Ottoman periods. These materials included illuminated Quranic manuscripts and important texts covering law, medicine, and literature. Their work combined immediate rescue efforts with long-term preservation strategies, aided by support from the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme and the International Council on Archives through the local NGO Eyes on Heritage. UNESCO officials noted the researchers’ success in establishing Gaza’s first specialised manuscript restoration laboratory.
Jehad AbuHassan of Première Urgence Internationale plans to collaborate with Eyes on Heritage to further stabilize the Omari Mosque library and protect its remaining collection, acknowledging that manuscripts in Gaza still face significant risks despite the recent rescue efforts.
