Raneem Mousa lifts a heavy volume from a shattered shelf inside the centuries-old library of Gaza’s Great Omari Mosque.
With a small brush, she gently sweeps away layers of dust before passing the book to a colleague, who wipes it clean with a soft cloth.
Together, they carry it to what they call the “safest corner” - a small space reserved for the volumes they have managed to salvage.
It is a painstaking, improvised effort to rescue rare books and manuscripts from a historic collection devastated by Israeli bombardment during the genocide in Gaza.
“The library was filled with shrapnel, rubble, and dung from stray animals taking shelter,” Mousa, 35, told Middle East Eye.
Hundreds of shattered books and torn papers were scattered on the ground, covered in stones.”
A master’s graduate in Arabic language, she is among a group of Palestinian women volunteers from the Eyes on Heritage Institute in Gaza City who have launched what they describe as a “first-aid” mission to preserve what remains.
“We began by removing stones and cleaning the space,” she said.