Heritage under Siege: Israeli settlement expansion threatens 4,000-year-old site in Sebastia

AMMAN — A 4,000-year-old Palestinian archaeological site in the West Bank is under mounting threat from Israeli settlement expansion, military activity, and infrastructure projects, according to a new alert issued by International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Palestine. 

Sebastia, located northwest of Nablus, is one of the oldest and most significant archaeological sites in the region. Spanning the Bronze Age to the Ottoman period, it features remnants from multiple civilizations, including a Roman amphitheatre and a mosque attributed to the prophet Yahiya (John the Baptist).

But the site is now at risk of cultural erasure, as Israeli authorities move forward with plans to reshape it into a Jewish heritage destination. The Israeli ministry of heritage has reportedly allocated 32 million NIS (approximately $9 million) toward developing settler-only roads, a tourist center, and military surveillance infrastructure at the site.

“These actions threaten to marginalize the local Palestinian community, undermine Sebastia’s tourism sector, and destabilize its socio-economic and security conditions,” warned the ICOMOS Heritage Alert.

Sebastia was added to UNESCO’s Tentative List in 2012, but experts now fear it may be severed from its Palestinian context altogether. A proposed Israeli Knesset bill seeks to extend the jurisdiction of the Israeli Antiquities Authority into the West Bank, while a recent military order aims to seize land at the summit of Tell Sebastia.

“The occupation army and settlers, accompanied by archaeologists, are constantly invading and preventing Palestinian officials from conducting any restoration,” said Shireen Allan, president of ICOMOS Palestine, in an interview with The Jordan Times. She added that Palestinian archaeologists are regularly blocked from access, unable to perform conservation or respond to looting.

The fragmentation of the site stems from the 1995 Oslo Accords, which placed the town of Sebastia under Palestinian civil control while leaving the archaeological zone under full Israeli authority. Today, around 80 per cent of the historic site is inaccessible to Palestinians, Allan said.

The ICOMOS report contends that such actions violate several international laws protecting cultural heritage in occupied territories, including the 1907 Hague Regulations, the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the 1954 Hague Convention. Under these agreements, occupying powers are forbidden from altering cultural sites and are obligated to support preservation efforts by local authorities.

“Israel has consistently failed to uphold its obligations as an occupying power,” the report states, citing Sebastia as a prominent example.

ICOMOS is now calling for Sebastia to be placed under Enhanced Protection under the Second Protocol of the 1954 Hague Convention, which would provide stronger legal safeguards against alteration or destruction.

The organisation also urged international donors and cultural institutions to provide emergency technical and financial support to counter what it calls an “escalating campaign of cultural re-appropriation.”

More than a collection of ruins, Sebastia is described by preservationists as a living testament to Palestinian identity. Its loss, they argue, would be a blow not only to local heritage but to global history.