With Primitive Tools on a Gaza Sidewalk… A Man Restores Qurans
Pulled from the Rubble

In a
narrow corner along a worn sidewalk in Gaza City, Raafat Jabr sits surrounded
by torn pages and charred covers, carefully piecing them together as if
reconstructing a memory rescued from beneath the debris.

Far
from workshops and libraries, a different kind of restoration story is taking
shape. Jabr works to repair what remains of Qurans recovered by residents from
the ruins of mosques and homes destroyed by the war.

Using
simple, rudimentary tools and without access to electricity, he spends long
hours gluing pages and rebinding whatever can be salvaged—an effort to
compensate for the severe shortage of Qurans following the destruction of
hundreds of mosques across the Gaza Strip.

Inside
a small kiosk that barely shields him from the sun, his work becomes a mission,
and his effort a form of resilience.

Jabr
says that residents bring him damaged copies of the Quran, and he strives to
revive them despite limited resources and the lack of necessary materials. Each
day, he manages to restore between five and six copies—a modest number, yet one
that carries significant meaning in a reality weighed down by blockade and
devastation.

This
craft is not new to him. For nearly 30 years, Jabr worked in book restoration,
previously operating from a shop in a local market with better tools and more
stable conditions. But the war has changed everything, forcing him from a fully
equipped workshop onto an exposed sidewalk, transforming professional work into
an individual initiative driven by determination.

Despite
the hardships, Jabr says he has no intention of stopping. He finds in his work
a sense of hope and fulfillment, especially as it represents, in his words, “a
service to the Book of God.” With ongoing restrictions on the entry of Qurans
into Gaza, the need to salvage what can be recovered from the rubble continues
to grow.

Jabr
asks for little—only volunteers to help him in his mission and a more suitable
space that would allow him to expand his work. In his hands, it is not only
books that are restored, but also a sense of perseverance in a city striving,
against all odds, to preserve what remains of its spirit.

(Source:
Al Jazeera)

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* للاطلاع على الترجمة الكاملة للخبر باللغة العربية، اضغط (هنا).