Shockwaves from the explosions registered 3.8 on seismic monitoring scales. Lebanese authorities have denied Israeli claims that there are ‘Hezbollah tunnels’ under the nearly 900-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site.
Sebastia is in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Christian & Islamic tradition holds that John the Baptist was buried there. Its residents have protected the site through generations, despite occupation, restrictions, and repeated Israeli attempts to separate them from their heritage
From Phoenician temples to Crusader castles, heritage sites bear the brunt of Israel’s expanding military invasion, much like in Palestine.
Trump’s threat to destroy Iranian civilization was not an expression of American values but the purest expression of an ideology the U.S.has attached itself to under both Biden and now Trump: Zionism and the Greater Israel project, first through U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, and most recently through the joint war of aggression against Iran.
From Isfahan to Tehran to Khorramabad, Israeli and American strikes have damaged landmarks, including some inscribed by UNESCO.
Saving artifacts in Gaza; settler violence; Lapid embraces Huckabee’s Greater Israel; “how will they eat?”; most moral army debate; American warplanes in Israel; Witkoff speaks at AIPAC; Randy Fine gets away with anti-Palestinian hate speech; more.
The cultural and historical sites of Gaza form an integral part of world heritage. Their destruction amounts to crimes under international criminal law.
Israel has desperately sought to be legitimized by the UN, while it has done its utmost to de-legitimize the UN. Now it wants a Security Council seat.