(
Jan. 22, 2026
/ JNS
)
A Jewish cemetery in the eastern Libyan city of Derna has been demolished due to construction work at the site, the head of an Israeli center for the preservation of Libyan Jewish heritage said on Thursday.
Scores of graves believed to have once been at the site were destroyed over the last couple of weeks, said Pedhazur Benattia, chairman of the Or Shalom organization in Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv.
He shared video footage of the site with the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
”There is nothing left there now,” Benattia told JNS, adding that such destruction was standard practice in the country.
No Jews live in Libya today, with the last resident leaving in 2003, ending a community that existed for more than two millennia.
