RAMALLAH, Saturday, July 13, 2024 (WAFA) – The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MoTA) today called on UNESCO to intervene immediately to stop Israel’s aggression on Palestinian national heritage.
The MoTA urged in a press statement the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and international organisations operating in heritage to intervene immediately to halt the Israeli aggression not only against the Palestinian people but also against the Palestinian national heritage, and called on them to confront the occupation decision to annex Palestinian antiquity sites.
The Ministry made this call after the Israeli Knesset’s Ministerial Legislative Committee approved for a preliminary reading a bill sponsored by Likud lawmaker Amit Halevi granting the Israel Antiquities Authority the right to operate in the West Bank.
It also came a week after the Israeli occupation government approved a series of punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority (PA), including a measure undercutting the PA’s powers regarding the archaeological sites in Areas B.
The MoTA considered the approval of this bill a de jure and de facto annexation of the occupied Palestinian Territories in violation of international law and agreements, and constitutes a legalization of the annexation of and settler-colonialism in the West Bank.
It affirmed that this bill, among other Israeli occupation’s decisions, are intended to control the Palestinian heritage and forms a part of the occupation’s escalation against the Palestinian people and in line with the occupation’s well-defined plan to de-Palestine the Palestinian territories, consolidate settler-colonialism and further isolate Palestinian cities and villages from one another.
It added that such Israeli measures violate international agreements and conventions, including the Hague Convention of 1954 for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its Protocols as well as the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
K.F.
