A U.N. convention has voted to listing prehistoric ruins close to the traditional West Financial institution metropolis of Jericho as a World Heritage Website in Palestine
ByThe Related Press
September 17, 2023, 4:43 AM
It is a locator map of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. (AP Photograph)
The Related Press
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A U.N. convention voted Sunday to listing prehistoric ruins close to the traditional West Financial institution metropolis of Jericho as a World Heritage Website in Palestine, a call prone to anger Israel, which controls the territory and doesn’t acknowledge a Palestinian state.
Jericho is among the oldest regularly inhabited cities on earth, and is in part of the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution that’s administered by the internationally acknowledged Palestinian Authority. The itemizing refers back to the Tel es-Sultan archaeological website close by, which comprises prehistoric ruins courting again to the ninth millenium B.C. and is exterior the traditional metropolis itself.
The choice was taken at a gathering of the U.N. World Heritage Committee in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, beneath the auspices of the U.N. Academic, Scientific and Cultural Group, UNESCO.
Israel stop UNESCO in 2019, accusing it of being biased in opposition to it and of diminishing its connection to the Holy Land. Israel additionally objected to UNESCO’s acceptance of Palestine as a member state in 2011. However Israel stays a celebration to the World Heritage Conference, and it despatched a delegation to the assembly in Riyadh.
Israel captured the West Financial institution, together with Gaza and east Jerusalem, within the 1967 Mideast battle. The Palestinians need all three territories for his or her future state. Israel views the West Financial institution because the biblical and cultural heartland of the Jewish folks.
There have been no severe or substantive peace negotiations in over a decade, and Israel is presently led by probably the most nationalist and non secular authorities in its historical past, making any transfer towards Palestinian statehood almost unimaginable.
The trendy metropolis of Jericho is a serious draw for tourism to the Palestinian territories, each due to its historic websites and proximity to the Lifeless Sea. In 2021, the Palestinian Authority unveiled main renovations to one of many largest mosaics within the Center East, in a Jericho palace courting again to the eighth century.