United Nations World Heritage Committee (UNESCO) has decided to list ancient ruins in Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the land of Israel, as “World Heritage Site in Palestine.”
Referred to as Tell es-Sultan (meaning Sultan’s Hill in Arabic) by UNESCO, Tel Jericho or Ancient Jericho is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world and consists of the remains of the world’s oldest fortified city.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry protested the decision, saying Israel considers it to be “another sign of the cynical use the Palestinians are making of UNESCO and the organisation’s politicisation. Israel will act with its many friends in the organisation to change the flawed decisions made.”
n 2019, Israel left UNESCO, accusing the body of being anti-Israel. Then ambassador to UN, Danny Danon, told Times of Israel at the time that “UNESCO is a body that continually rewrites history, including by erasing the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.”
“It is corrupted and manipulated by Israel’s enemies, and continually singles out the only Jewish state for condemnation. We are not going to be a member of an organisation that deliberately acts against us,” He added.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the UN World Heritage Committee in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The ancient city joins three other “UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Palestine”: the Church of the Nativity and the pilgrimage route in Bethlehem, the cultural landscape of southern Jerusalem and Battir, and the Old City in Hebron.
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