Ancient Jericho added to UNESCO World Heritage list for Palestine | EUROtoday

The space is within the occupied West Bank, which Israel seized together with Gaza and East Jerusalem within the 1967 struggle. Jericho is run by the Palestinian Authority, which nominated the location.

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“The natural resources and strategic location of Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan made it … a major node of human development for millennia,” the Palestinian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry wrote in an government abstract for the committee. “Today’s residents drink water from the same springs and irrigate the same fields” because the dwellers of historical Jericho.

The metropolis is among the world’s oldest frequently inhabited areas, having attracted a everlasting settlement as early because the ninth millennium B.C. Excavations there have unearthed traces of Neolithic populations and supplies from the Early and Middle Bronze Ages.

But Israel, which has 9 listed heritage websites, objected to the designation Sunday.

In an announcement carried by Israeli media, the Foreign Ministry stated the choice was “another sign of the Palestinians’ cynical use of UNESCO” and their “politicization of the organization.”

Israel stop UNESCO in 2019 after it described a shrine within the biblical metropolis of Hebron as a Palestinian World Heritage website that was “in danger.” The website, often known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs, is positioned in Hebron’s Old Town and dates to the first century A.D. It is necessary in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Israeli officers accused UNESCO of downplaying Jewish ties to the Holy Land. But Israel has remained a celebration to the World Heritage Convention, and it despatched a delegation to the assembly in Riyadh on Sept. 10.

The delegation was led by the top of Israel’s Antiquities Authority and was the primary public go to by Israeli officers to Saudi Arabia. The two international locations are in talks to normalize relations, with the help of the United States.

Other Persian Gulf international locations, together with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have established diplomatic ties with Israel. But Riyadh has stalled, insisting that Israel and the Palestinians first agree to a two-state resolution.

UNESCO designations have lengthy been difficult by politics and battle. The company’s position is to determine, shield and protect websites which might be naturally or culturally important. The choice course of has come underneath fireplace elsewhere akin to Syria and Kashmir.

In the Palestinian territories, UNESCO has designated three different websites: the Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route in Bethlehem; the Battir hill panorama of grapevines and olive bushes; and the Old Town in Hebron.