"It's a historic day," Mansour told AFP.
"I am very happy that we were able to reopen the bookstore".
The new library was built about 200 meters from the old one, in the Rimal neighborhood in western Gaza City.
The building was destroyed in May 2021 in an Israeli airstrike during the war between the ruling Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza and the Israeli army.
The new bookstore, which consists of two floors and covers an area of 1,000 square meters, has some 400,000 books at a cost of about $350,000, according to Mansour.
The bookstore "contains four times more books than it had before being destroyed", thanks to the many donors who have mobilized to revive this project, he explained.
Hundreds of people, including writers and intellectuals, attended its inauguration.
"The Israeli occupation can demolish a building (..) but it cannot break the will of the Palestinians", affirmed the Palestinian Minister of Culture, Atef Abou Seif, also present.
Photo taken on May 22, 2021 showing Palestinian Samir Mansour, whose bookstore has just been destroyed by the Israeli army in Gaza City Emmanuel DUNAND AFP/Archives
Founded around 30 years ago, the Mansour bookstore was considered the largest and oldest in the Gaza Strip.
It offered school and university books, novels, political books in Arabic and English.
The eleven days of clashes in May 2021 left 14 dead in Israel and more than 250 dead in the Gaza Strip, according to UN data.
© 2022 AFP