Ramallah: Palestine called on the UN culture and education agency UNESCO on Thursday to assume responsibility for protecting Palestinian archaeological sites from Israeli theft. In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry called an Israeli decision to classify 63 archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank as Israeli heritage a 'blatant violation of international law, the Geneva Conventions, and signed agreements.'
According to Anadolu Agency, the ministry described this action as part of a colonial ideology intended to deepen the annexation of the West Bank, altering its landmarks, identity, and demographic reality. The ministry condemned the seizure as 'one of the largest acts of piracy and theft of Palestinian land for purely settlement purposes under false pretexts with no historical or documented evidence to support them.' This act was labeled as an open crime of falsifying history and the present.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry urged the international community, especially UNESCO, to expose this crime and counter the Israeli narrative aimed at consolidating illegal settler presence and control over these sites. Many of these sites are located in the heart of Palestinian towns and cities, and the Israeli measures threaten the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state by erasing and altering the identity of heritage sites.
On Wednesday, the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ), a Palestinian nongovernmental organization, reported that the Israeli army had declared 63 Palestinian archaeological sites in the West Bank as 'Israeli heritage sites.' According to the institute, Israel has already classified more than 2,400 Palestinian sites in the occupied West Bank as Israeli heritage sites.
The move coincides with the Israeli army's escalated assaults in the West Bank, with at least 1,015 Palestinians killed and over 7,000 injured since October 2023. In a related development, the International Court of Justice ruled in July 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal, urging the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.