ThosePalestinian archaeologist in Geneva
From Gaza to Geneva, he went from hell “in paradise”
Archaeologist Gazaoui Fadel Alutol arrived in Geneva three months ago with his family. It helps the museum of art and history to reconnect archaeological pieces from Gaza in 2006.
Geneva, June 23, 2025. Meeting with Fadel Alutol in front of the Museum of Art and History which employs it to help it in particular to recondition 530 pieces from Gaza in 2006.
Laurent Guiraud/Tamedia
- Archaeologist Gazaoui Fadel Alutol found refuge in Geneva with his family.
- It helps the museum of art and history to reconnect archaeological pieces from Gaza in 2006.
- Still very marked by war, this family is gradually adapting to life in Switzerland.
- He hopes that an archaeological museum can one day set up in Gaza.
Thanks to the consular support of Switzerland, Archaeologist Fadel Alutol was able to flee Gaza three months ago with his wife and six children, to come and work at the Museum of Art and History (MAH). He received a work permit to help the museum to recondition the 530 archaeological pieces of the exhibition “Gaza at the crossroads of civilizations”, inaugurated in 2007 in Mah by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Swiss counterpart, Micheline Calmy-Rey.
This 44-year-old Palestinian, whose arrival was also possible thanks to the efforts of the Geneva archaeologist Marc-André Haldimann, says he left hell to arrive in paradise. Testimony.
How did your first three months go in Geneva?
Fadel Alutol: Our life has changed at 300%! For me and my family, it’s very difficult to forget what we have seen and heard. But now we are starting to enjoy life in Geneva.
The most important thing is security, being alive, freedom, thanks to Switzerland. I am also very happy that my children are in school, because it has been two and a half years that they were deprived of it. I don’t know how to thank Swiss. We are good. Many very benevolent people help us. We took advantage of the music festival on Sunday. In Victoria Hall, the children were amazed. How different!
Three months ago, we heard the bombs, and now music. We didn’t hear any birds, and now we hear them all the time! My wife is starting to understand French, I showed him how to go shopping at Coop and Lidl. And we’re going a lot in the parks. Switzerland is a paradise. And I have already been able to make appointments in the hospital to treat my family.
Psychologically?
I want to do complete medical checks. In Gaza, when you drink water, you can get sick. The first day in Geneva, my daughter woke up and turned the tap. She called her mother to quickly bring cans before a cut of water intervenes …
In Gaza, if we did not go at 5:30 a.m. with humanitarian aid trucks, we died of thirst. In the apartment that a very kind person lent us, we once heard a helicopter from the cantonal hospital, we all hid in the middle of the room. When we eat and a door slap, we are still all starting.
The bombings, insecurity, fear, hunger … tell us about your daily life in Gaza.
It is not normal what is going on. We arrived at 56,000 dead. It is a huge figure. But it’s not just a number, they are people like us, children like ours! Yes, there are bad people in Gaza. October 7 hurt us very much. But you shouldn’t charge everyone’s bill.
Before, the Gaza Strip was the largest prison in the world, it is today the largest cemetery in the world. If you don’t die, you starve it. If you don’t die there, you die there, because there are no more hospitals. With my family, I changed seven times in a place to live.
On March 26, Fadel Alutol and his family on the bus that will lead them from Khan Younès (Gaza) to Kerem Shalom (Israel).
DR
That’s to say?
I live in an area north of Gaza City which was among the first attacked districts, the bombings took place right next to my home. We went to a school, but the schools were also bombed.
Then we went to a UNRWA school, but UNRWA was also bombed. The Israelis then said that we had to move to the south.
I then went to a school near the archaeological site of the church of Saint-Hilarion. I then stayed seven or eight months in Khan Younès. With the truce, I got back on foot with my family in Gaza City, walking 20 kilometers … Now I discovered my completely destroyed house.
I also went to all the sites where I worked, to photograph the destruction (Editor’s note: Mah will now sort and archive more than 7000 photos and videos).
What remains of archaeological heritage?
I have no news of very important sites like El Borj and Rafah, because they are occupied by the Israeli army. There was a lot of destruction. In Jabaliya, the old town, the church, the Byzantine mosaics and the Roman cemetery are destroyed. In the latter, the sheds, where the material and archaeological objects were stored were shaved by bulldozers. I searched the rubble, but I found nothing.
For you, is it thirty years of annihilated work? Israel which destroys Gaza’s heritage, what does that mean?
I oppose anyone destroyed archaeological sites. Before the war, I stood in front of the Bulldozers of Hamas, who wanted to build homes on the Tell Es-Sakan site.
As for Israel, it will not erase the history of Gaza by destroying archaeological sites, because Gaza is history. But by destroying them, Israel does not fight Hamas, he attacks all the people of Gaza and no one stops it.
Today, do you want more in Hamas or Netanyahu?
I want both, because we are trapped between them. The Israeli Prime Minister, by wage war, is not looking for security either for his country, or for Europe and the United States, but only to stay in power. Do not kill children, you should not destroy Gaza, who has a huge culture and a very rich story.
What does the attack on Israel and the United States inspire you against Iran (hostilities have ended since this interview)?
I oppose war, with America, Iran, Israel, Hamas, Russia or Ukraine! I want nobody to have to live what I experienced in Gaza! Iran helped Hamas, but why, if the Israeli government no longer wants Hamas, has Qatar finance it for seventeen years? Iran, Hamas, Israel, it’s the same thing: in the end, it is the peoples who pay the bill.
I’m now afraid of a climb, because the Shiites are hard, very hard. And by bombing Iran, Israel takes the opportunity to continue killing civilians in Gaza. I am a man of culture, an archaeologist. I’m not afraid to speak. On the first day of the attack on Iran, there were 400 killed in Gaza, men, women, children having walked miles to try to eat with aid trucks, not to attack Israel!
What do your loved ones stay in Gaza tell you?
It is very difficult. I have my whole family there. Last week, I stayed six days without news. They eat once a day … if they receive a bag of flour. Water, they boil it. Hunger, nothing cuts it, the war of hunger is worse than the bombs. My children have all lost a lot of weight they have picked up today, fortunately. Here, I buy them whatever they want! At the supermarket, we find everything.
How do you live this contrast?
It hurts me. I was visio with my wife’s eldest girl, who stayed there because she is married and has children. I turned the camera so that they can see through our window. Without doing it on purpose, I showed food on the table. A child asked me to give it to him. What do you want to answer? You can’t even speak.
It’s been three days that I have no news of them. Sunday, I lost a member of my family again. I lost 43 so far. You should not make a whole people pay, bomb tents by launching 2-ton rockets for F-16s.
Fadel Alutol working on the Mosaics of the 6th century of the Saint-Hilarion monastery, Nousseirat, Gaza Strip, 2021.
DR
Hope you return to Gaza one day?
Absolutely. I am waiting for the end of the war and I will return immediately, because there are a lot to restore. Gaza is very old, its history is very rich.
You should help recondition the archaeological pieces that are now in Frankish ports and which Geneva is responsible for protecting. Have you ever left the boxes?
Yes. In particular, there is an amphora being catering. Seeing them, I feel Gaza, it’s something, I look at them as I look at children, I feel history, archeology, I see myself in Gaza and I feel good.
These are parts that you wrapped in 2006 in Gaza for the exhibition that was set up the following year in Geneva?
Yes. And it was during intifada: Israeli helicopters pulled above us. I hope that one day we will build an archaeological museum in Gaza, that the pieces of the 2007 exhibition will return.
I’m sure it will happen. With the support of the Museum of Art and History, which is my second family. I can never thank him enough for having helped me and for having set up this exhibition which has shot in many cities and thanks to whom, today, everyone knows The story of Gaza.
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