{"id":219793,"date":"2026-07-23T13:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/219793\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T13:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:38:10","slug":"palestinian-authority-petitions-unesco-to-make-sebastia-world-heritage-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/219793\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinian Authority petitions UNESCO to make Sebastia World Heritage Site"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Palestinian Authority has increased lobbying to have the historic archaeological site of Sebastia recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site ahead of a debate in South Korea<\/a> later this month, a move that the Foreign Ministry claimed on Wednesday is politically motivated and posed a threat to the ancient ruins.<\/p>\n

The 450-acre site, which has awaited joining the world heritage list since 2012, has a history dating back at least 3,000 years. Once ancient Samaria, the capital of the biblical Kingdom of Israel, it holds great importance in Jewish history. \u00a0Herod the Great, the former king of Judea, renamed the territory Sebastia and rebuilt it with structures that survived through Roman, Arab, and Crusader rule over the land.<\/p>\n

The archaeological site in Area C, located northwest of Nablus, lies next to a residential village in Area B whose economy relies heavily on tourism from the site and its surrounding olive groves. In November, Israel\u2019s letter to Mahmoud Azem, the mayor of Sebastia, announcing plans to seize control of the site sparked significant concern among Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Defending the plans, the foreign ministry noted that the threat to the historic site stemmed from the \u201cPalestinian Authority’s own record of neglect and complicity, which has allowed the ancient ruins to suffer rampant vandalism, theft, and desecration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beirut\u2019s Institute for Palestine Studies\u2019s PalQuest encyclopedia has acknowledged \u201cthe Palestinian Authority<\/a> has not prioritized the protection or the restoration of heritage; it has proposed no heritage legislation and has dedicated few if any resources to heritage preservation,\u201d though it has also blamed Israel for the poor maintenance of archaeological sites across the West Bank and Gaza.<\/p>\n

\"ViewView of the ancient archeological site of Sebastia, near the West Bank city of Nablus, May 12, 2025. (credit: NASSER ISHTAYEH\/FLASH90)Palestinian Authority paves road through archaeological site<\/p>\n

The PA notably paved a new road through the site in 2023, drawing condemnation from the Israeli government. During the works on the road, a wall from the Herodian era was destroyed and burial caves from the Second Temple period were broken into and looted, according to the organization Protecting Eternity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Palestinian delegation continues to exploit UNESCO to advance a hostile, one-sided campaign, specifically through its initiative concerning Sebastia, ancient Samaria<\/a>. Sebastia is the historic, biblical capital of the ancient Kingdom of Israel,\u201d the foreign ministry said in a statement. \u201cThe attempt to portray the site as facing an emergency is entirely unsupported by professional evaluation, and serves only as a political tool to erase the site\u2019s profound, well-documented Jewish and Christian history\u2026 This cynical weaponization of cultural heritage undermines the very credibility of the World Heritage Convention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel campaigning to expand control over West Bank, critics claim<\/p>\n

More than a claim over a single historical site, critics have argued that the move to seize control of Sebastia is part of a broader campaign to expand Israeli territorial control over the West Bank<\/a>. In November last year, the Civil Administration began taking control of land, expropriating 1,800 dunams in the West Bank for the \u201cpreservation and development\u201d of the archaeological site. In February, Israel reopened a land registry in Area C for the first time since 1967, a move the Palestinian Authority condemned as part of a \u201cJudaizing Palestinian land\u201d project.<\/p>\n

The heritage ministry has spent or intends to spend upwards of NIS 30 million on the site, according to a statement by the Civil Administration in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cSebastia is one of the most important sites in our national and historical heritage \u2026 Our desire is to breathe new life into the site and make it an attraction for hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, which will strengthen the connection between the people, their heritage, and their country,\u201d Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said in a statement last year.<\/p>\n

More recently, the site has become the scene of clashes between Palestinian and Israeli residents of the West Bank, according to WAFA. The PA-run media site accused Israeli settlers of \u201cstorming\u201d Sebastia on Monday \u201cunder heavy protection from Israeli forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clash reportedly happened during a \u201csolidarity gathering\u201d connected to the UNESCO bid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Palestinian Authority has increased lobbying to have the historic archaeological site of Sebastia recognized as a UNESCO…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[13498,14865,3748,63392,37,14889,17077,24096,400,6905,63138],"class_list":["post-219793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-archaeological-site","tag-archaeology","tag-foreign-ministry","tag-herod","tag-israel","tag-judea-and-samaria","tag-palestinian-authority","tag-rabbi-amichai-eliyahu","tag-unesco","tag-west-bank","tag-world-heritage-committee"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116969570827467843","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}