PEN America Condemns Israel’s ‘Destruction of Gaza’s Cultural Heritage’

A new report from PEN America, released today, found that the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza “inflicted a catastrophic blow to Gaza’s cultural life and heritage and amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and offers evidence of genocidal intent.”

The report, entitled All That Is Lost, “examines the destruction or partial destruction of 36 cultural, historical, religious, and educational sites, and also three instances of deliberate book burnings and two cases of reported looting of archaeological artifacts,” per a statement from PEN America.

The nonprofit added that it “agrees with the consensus in the human rights community that the policies and actions of the government of Israel in Gaza amount to genocide under international law, based on the direct fact-finding work and expertise of a wide range of international, Palestinian, and Israeli human rights organizations, UN bodies, and genocide scholars.”

“We must speak out unequivocally in defense of Palestinians’ dignity, humanity, and survival. The destruction of Gaza’s libraries and bookshops—repositories of knowledge and memory where academics and scholars do their work—is an assault not only on buildings and books, but on the lifeblood of a people’s cultural identity,” said Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf, interim co-CEO and chief program officer of literary programming, in a statement. 

The report marks a turn for PEN America, which since early 2024 has drawn criticism from authors over what they saw as the nonprofit’s muted response to the crisis in Gaza. Last year, the organization canceled both its Literary Awards and World Voices Festival after a number of authors withdrew their participation in protest.

Following criticism, PEN America president Jennifer Finney Boylan committed to conducting a “review” of PEN’s work “going back a decade,” and Rosaz Shariyf  pledged to host a town hall “to create a space to wrestle with the issues gripping the literary community and our own organization.” Last October, CEO Suzanne Nossel stepped down.