In the past, local archaeologists reburied findings for lack of funding but French organisations have helped excavate this site, discovered in February last year by a construction crew working on an Egyptian-funded housing project. “It is the first time in Palestine we have discovered a cemetery that has 125 tombs, and it is the first time in Gaza we have discovered two sarcophaguses made of lead,” Fadel Al A’utul, an expert at the French School of Biblical and Archeological Research, told Reuters at the site.
REUTERS