{"id":223655,"date":"2026-07-26T16:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T16:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/223655\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T16:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T16:04:08","slug":"ngo-challenges-israels-claims-over-sebastia-archaeological-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/223655\/","title":{"rendered":"NGO challenges Israel\u2019s claims over Sebastia archaeological site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel\u2019s investment in ensuring access to historic archaeological sites at the expense of the Palestinians who live there is a form of \u201cheritage apartheid<\/a>,\u201d Alon Arad, executive director of the Israeli NGO Emek Shaveh, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Arad spoke to the Post only days after UNESCO voted to designate the historic site of Sebastia<\/a> as a World Heritage site, a move that Palestinian officials hoped would end plans to seize hundreds of acres of land in and around the town.<\/p>\n

The archaeological site located in Area C, 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

Telling the Post that he firmly congratulated the people of Sebastia, Arad made no secret that he viewed Israel\u2019s attempts at seizing the land as politically motivated. Israel has frequently defended its need to assert control over key archaeological sites as a matter of necessity, arguing that the Palestinian Authority<\/a> has failed to stop looting and destruction at these sites.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the Post on Thursday, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said, \u201cThe land of the Jewish people belongs to the Jewish people. No international organization, certainly not one that acts time and again out of anti-Israel bias, will determine the identity of our heritage sites or rewrite the history of the Jewish people.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cTherefore, we are acting to secure the future of our national heritage sites. As part of this effort, we have advanced the expropriation of lands in the area of the Sebastia site to ensure its protection against any attempt to erase its identity or distort its historical narrative.<\/p>\n

Arad asserted that such claims are \u201cfake news\u201d perpetuated by settlers and the state, explaining how the people of Sebastia have embraced the archaeological site as a key component of their identity, and benefit from the tourists drawn to the site. Demanding that Israel provide data to support its claims, Arad said that Palestinians attempting to access the site to preserve or maintain it often face arrest by the Civil Administration.<\/p>\n

‘No evidence Palestinians are destroying the site’ said Arad<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s quite hypocritical to claim that the Palestinians are destroying the site without providing any supporting evidence, and then use that argument to justify annexation through the expropriation of land and development of the site by the Israeli side, while completely ignoring the Palestinian community. That’s simply hypocrisy,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the moment Israel puts about $150 million into developing archaeological sites<\/a> that will only be accessible to Jews and Israelis, I can only see that as a form of heritage apartheid,\u201d he continued. \u201cIf Israel has evidence of a specific plan to destroy archaeological sites, it should present that evidence. Unless it does, this is simply fake news, and both the settlers and the State of Israel have failed to provide any proof.\u201d<\/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 Shomrim Al Hanetzach (Protecting Eternity).<\/p>\n

Arad added that Palestinians had not disputed the site’s Jewish history but instead sought to ensure that all of its history was preserved and presented. He claimed that Israelis had been welcomed by the Palestinian village of Sebastia, which borders the archaeological site, and that the only restrictions on access were being imposed by the Israeli authorities.<\/p>\n

The site indeed holds archaeological remnants from successive periods dating back at least to the 9th-century BC capital of the Israelite kingdom, through the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic periods, Crusader and Ottoman eras, according to UNESCO, and its importance stretches beyond the Jewish faith. It is traditionally seen as the burial place of John the Baptist.<\/p>\n

‘Israel is damaging the very sites it claims to protect’<\/p>\n

Arad claimed Israel\u2019s moves on the land under the reasoning of defending the sites were actually the very thing putting them in danger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more Israel pushes to transform archaeological sites into anchors for annexation, the greater the backlash, and that ends up damaging the very sites it claims to protect,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen one side turns these sites into a political issue, and in this case that is only the Israeli side, because Israel has governed the West Bank under military rule for almost 60 years, it inevitably creates conflict around them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Admitting there is some looting of archeological sites across Area A and B of the West Bank, Arad said this destruction was driven by economic need, not by an intention to destroy Jewish history in the land.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael has been shutting down the borders, preventing workers and employees from entering Israel to work and earn money and salaries. Israel is also shutting down the border with Jordan. So what is expected? That crime will not flourish? We create a problem, then we complain about the problem, and then we invent solutions that only deepen the problem rather than solve it,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf any solution to the issue of antiquities and heritage sites in the West Bank is considered, I think the only possible solution is to strengthen the Ministry of Tourism, strengthen the Department of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage in the Palestinian Authority, and give them the tools and freedom to deal with these sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arad accused Israel of violating the 1954 Hague Convention, an international treaty dedicated exclusively to protecting humanity’s cultural heritage during both peacetime and armed conflict, and the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, \u00a0a permanent framework for international cooperation to safeguard heritage sites from neglect, natural decay, and armed conflict. \u00a0He suggested this was a core mistake on Jerusalem\u2019s part given the recognition of nine sites within Israel and the fact that Israel was treated as an \u201cequal\u201d state member, the same as the Palestinian delegation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Israel wants to maintain its status, it has to respect the fact that this site is no longer an ordinary archaeological site in the West Bank, but a world heritage\u2026 a world heritage in danger,\u201d he advised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s investment in ensuring access to historic archaeological sites at the expense of the Palestinians who live there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[16555,15588,2570,37,51268,33464,7888,6905],"class_list":["post-223655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-apartheid","tag-archeology","tag-heritage","tag-israel","tag-israeli-settlement","tag-nablus","tag-palestinian","tag-west-bank"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116987131961069371","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223655","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=223655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}