Israel Vows To Press Ahead With Samaria Heritage Park Despite UNESCO Designation of West Bank Site

Israeli officials say they will not be deterred from developing a tourist park at the West Bank archaeological site of Sebastia — considered to be the ancient capital of Northern Israel, Samaria — by a United Nations agency’s designation of the ruin as a World Heritage Site.UNESCO’s decision Friday to designate the site, along with several castles in embattled southern Lebanon, is the latest development in a long-running feud between Israel and what it sees as a hostile and politically driven agency from which it withdrew in 2019.“The 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,” Israel’s heritage minister, Amichai Eliyahu, said in a statement to the Jerusalem Post.“Therefore, 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.”Archaeologists say that Sebastia, in the West Bank about 7.5 miles northwest of Nablus, was first occupied in the 9th century BCE as the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel under the name Samaria. Its name was changed to Sebaste by King Herod during the Roman era in 27 BCE and, according to local traditions, became the burial place of John the Baptist.In announcing its decision on Friday, UNESCO said the site preserves relatively direct archaeological traces of a history that runs from its founding as Samaria “through the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods, with later architectural remains dating to the Crusader era, as well as the Ayyubid/Mamluk and Ottoman periods.”The site now stands in an area under exclusive Israeli military jurisdiction but adjacent to a Palestinian village controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The PA and villagers have objected to plans by the Heritage Ministry to develop the site as a fenced-off Samaria National Park to be reached via an Israelis-only access road, cutting off local Palestinian businesses that rely on tourists to the ruins.The PA had been seeking UNESCO designation of the site since being admitted as a full member of the organization under the name State of Palestine in 2012. Its demand for urgent action picked up after Israel announced plans in 2025 to expropriate more than 500 acres of Palestinian land to advance the park project.Israeli objections to the designation center on its description as a Palestinian heritage site within the State of Palestine, seemingly acknowledging a role for the PA as a custodian of the site. It sees this as an attempt to rewrite history and deny Israel’s historic ties to the site. Israel also objects to UNESCO’s decision to handle the issue on an expedited basis, arguing that the PA fabricated an artificial threat to the site.“The Palestinian leadership and those who assist it in international institutions are not merely trying to rewrite history,” Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said in a statement Friday. “They are trying to fabricate an entirely false narrative. Erasing and denying the Jewish connection to this land. Sebastia is a place of immense importance in the history of the Jewish people and the ancient Kingdom of Israel.”Israel also objected to UNESCO’s designation on Friday of a network of five medieval fortresses in southern Lebanon including Beaufort Castle, a 900-year-old Crusader stronghold whose hilltop vantage point has made it the scene of repeated fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.Israel sees the designation as an effort to shield what Hezbollah has made into a heavily fortified military outpost with a network of tunnels and bunkers that have been used to fire hundreds of rockets into Israel. The designation could become a pretext to block the Israeli military from dismantling Hezbollah military installations at the site.The designation of Sebastia has no immediate effect on the ground, since Israel enjoys full military control of the area and UNESCO has no enforcement mechanism. However, the plan to establish a national park on the site may now be seen by critics as a violation of international agreements requiring UNESCO member countries to ensure “the identification, protection, conservation, presentation, and transmission to future generations of the cultural and natural heritage situated on their territory.”While Israel withdrew from UNESCO in 2019 citing what it described as a persistent anti-Israel bias, it remains subject to the 1972 World Heritage Convention, which requires signatories to refrain from measures that might directly or indirectly damage heritage sites located in the territory of other “state parties” to the convention.Israel argues that because it does not recognize a state of Palestine, the PA’s submission of the site to UNESCO has no legal force and that the 1972 convention does not apply because the PA does not qualify for status as a “state party.”

Israel Vows To Press Ahead With Samaria Heritage Park Despite UNESCO Designation of West Bank Site

Israel Vows To Press Ahead With Samaria Heritage Park Despite UNESCO Designation of West Bank Site

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