Ancient Christian Monastery in Gaza added to Unesco World Heritage List

Located south of Gaza city, Tell Umm Amer dates back to the fourth century. It is home to the ruins of the monastery of Saint Hilarion with its two churches, a burial site, a baptism hall, a public cemetery, an audience hall and dining rooms.

As part of its 2012 submission to the Unesco World Heritage Tentative List, an inventory of cultural and heritage sites preceding the World Heritage List, the Permanent Delegation of Palestine to Unesco highlighted Tell Umm Amer’s significance to the origins of Christianity in Palestine.

“The monastery of Saint Hilarion is one of the rare sites in its architectural elements and which bears an exceptional historical, religious and cultural testimony. The monastery used to be an important station on the crossroads between Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia,” it read.

"The site is tangibly associated with the phenomenon of the flowering of monastic desert centres in Palestine during the Byzantine period. Saint Hilarion’s monastery was perhaps a centre of missionary work in the Gaza region, seemingly isolated in the desert but actually at the centre of affairs at communications crossroads.”