Israeli Strikes Damage Tyre Necropolis, Killing Family Near UNESCO Heritage Site

Israeli strikes near the Tyre Necropolis in southern Lebanon damaged a UNESCO heritage site, with other sites across Tyre remaining at risk as efforts to enforce a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah fall short.

Franceinfo described Tyre, about twenty kilometers from the border with Israel, as the target of several Israeli strikes since the start of the war with Hezbollah on March 2, and said the Al-Bass necropolis has as its only protection UNESCO's Blue Shield.

Al Jazeera

On March 6, Franceinfo reported that an entire eight-person family was killed when their house was leveled just meters from the Al-Bass ruins, and it said the explosion shattered windows but did not reach the second- and third-century necropolis.

Nader Saqlaoui, director of archaeological excavations in the south, said, "They thought that the site's proximity would protect them because it is UNESCO World Heritage-listed, that it would not be touched," and he added that the team inspecting possible damage discovered human remains on the roof of the museum, still under construction.

Le Figaro also tied the risk to the Blue Shield, saying the only bulwark to protect the ancient ruins from Israeli bombs is "a symbolic UNESCO panel flanked by a blue and white shield."

Lebanon’s Culture Minister Ghassan Salamé denounced what he called an aggression by Israel and said, "there is no military or security presence at these sites," while Franceinfo said the Blue Shields are a message to the Israeli army referencing the 1954 Hague Convention.

L’Orient-Le Jour reported that Salamé took the initiative to alert UNESCO to the risks the armed conflict poses to Lebanon’s main cultural sites, and it said he made a phone call with UNESCO Director-General Khaled el-Enany in Paris.

Anadolu Ajansı

In that account, Jad Tabet, an architect and adviser to the Minister of Culture, told L’Orient-Le Jour that the future museum in the Tyre area sustained damage when glass shattered and windows were ripped out by the blast’s force.

L’Orient-Le Jour said an official complaint had been filed with UNESCO after an Israeli air strike hit Friday around 4 p.m. the immediate surroundings of the Tyre archaeological site, and it added that the blast wave sparked a fire in the scrubland that rescue services quickly controlled.

Al Jazeera framed the broader pattern by saying, "Other sites across Tyre, a city with a 5,000-year history, remain at risk" as the ceasefire enforcement efforts fall short.

Le Figaro said the Blue Shield initiative covers about thirty sites in Lebanon, and it described the 1954 Hague Convention as obliging the preservation of cultural property in times of armed conflict.

“In southern Lebanon, concern for Tyre's archaeological treasures under threat from Israeli bombs”

franceinfo

David Sassine, an expert with the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage (ALIPH), told Le Figaro that Lebanon is full of archaeological riches and that Beirut’s depots do not have the capacity to shelter all these endangered objects, adding that even under military escort transporting objects from the south remains risky.

L’Orient-Le Jour reported that UNESCO instructed its Beirut regional office to provide emergency assistance to facilitate the evacuation of patrimonial objects from risk zones to safer places, with funding allocated by the organization for this purpose.

Anadolu Ajansı said UNESCO announced on April 2 that 39 cultural sites in Lebanon were granted "Temporary Enhanced Protection," and it quoted Lebanese Culture Minister Ghassan Salama denouncing Israel’s targeting of the country’s cultural and civilizational heritage.

Anadolu Ajansı also quoted Sidon Mayor Alwan Sharaf al-Din saying, "Israel targets people and stone, and seeks to destroy cultural and civilizational heritage," while it described Tyre and Sidon as historic cities whose archaeological sites have been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 1984 and the 1980s, respectively.