SEOUL — A United Nations committee voted Friday to inscribe a major archaeological site in the West Bank and a set of castles in southern Lebanon as World Heritage sites, despite objections from Israel, which had urged the committee to reject the bids.
The decision at a U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in South Korea came days after Israel’s Foreign Ministry urged the committee to reject efforts to designate the small West Bank town of Sebastia and the Lebanese castles, calling the nominations a “weaponization of cultural heritage.”
At their meeting in Busan, members of the UNESCO committee decided to place Sebastia and five castles in Lebanon’s Mount Amel area on both the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger after reviewing the nominations on an emergency basis, citing ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
Sebastia, a hilltop town about six miles northwest of Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is identified by scholars as ancient Samaria, capital of the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The area’s archaeological remains span the Iron Age, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods. Christian and Islamic tradition holds that John the Baptist was buried there, according to a UNESCO website.
Sebastia’s nomination, first submitted by the Palestinian delegation to UNESCO in 2012, argued that World Heritage status was needed to help preserve the site, saying it remains largely undeveloped under Israeli control and requires additional conservation despite attracting tourists.
The designation comes as Israel, which does not recognize a Palestinian state, moves to expropriate large swaths of land around the site, even as it faces pressure to crack down on violence by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian territory.
The five castles in the Mount Amel region are recognized for their layered architectural heritage, combining Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and local influences, reflecting the evolution of fortified architecture over nearly nine centuries, according to a UNESCO description.
Adel Naim Daoud Atieh, a member of the Palestinian delegation to UNESCO, said the World Heritage designation rewards the perseverance of Sebastia’s residents, “who have protected this extraordinary site through generations, despite occupation, restrictions, and repeated attempts to separate them from their own heritage.”
Israel withdrew from UNESCO in 2019, accusing the organization of being biased against it and of downplaying its historical ties to the Holy Land. A member of the Israeli delegation, which is attending the Busan meetings as observers, said it was a “shame politicization has ruined UNESCO and led to mockery of history.”
In Tuesday’s statement, Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused the Palestinian delegation of waging a “hostile, one-sided campaign” at UNESCO by falsely portraying Sebastia as an area facing an emergency, calling the effort a political attempt to “erase the site’s profound, well-documented Jewish and Christian history.”
The ministry also objected to efforts to list Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon as a World Heritage site. The castle was part of the nomination covering five castles in the Mount Amel area.
The ministry said Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group, has turned Beaufort Castle into a military stronghold by building tunnels beneath the site and launching rockets from the area, and accused UNESCO of ignoring those developments.
UNESCO and the Lebanese embassy in South Korea declined to comment on the Israeli claims about Hezbollah. At Friday’s meeting, a Lebanese delegate said the castles have been used “only for cultural and tourism purposes” since Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and accused Israeli media of circulating images of tourist facilities as military tunnels.
The UNESCO committee on Wednesday placed another Lebanese site, Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city in the southern part of the country, on the list of world heritage sites in danger.
Tong-Hyung writes for the Associated Press.
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