The Monastery of St. Hilarion in the Gaza Strip has been added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage in Danger, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization announced on Friday.
The organization, which is currently holding a meeting of the World Heritage Committee in New Delhi, wrote via its X platform, "New inscription on the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger: Saint Hilarion Monastery/Tell Amer in Palestine."
"This decision recognizes the outstanding universal value of this site and the duty to protect it from imminent dangers," the organization said in a statement.
"Given the imminent threats to this heritage in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip, the World Heritage Committee has resorted to emergency action under the World Heritage Convention," the statement read.
UNESCO wrote on its website, "The ruins of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, located on the hills of the Nuseirat coast, belong to one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, and are considered an exceptional and unparalleled testimony to the emergence of Christianity in the region.
The Director of World Heritage, Elondo Lazzari, explained to Agence France-Presse that "the request came from Palestine", which considers resorting to UNESCO "the only resort to protect the site from destruction in the current circumstances" in light of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
Palestine joined UNESCO as a full member in 2011, which initially led to the suspension of US contributions to its budget and its subsequent departure from the organization in 2017 under the presidency of Donald Trump. Israel followed suit.
The State Department justified the decision at the time by "continuing bias against Israel" in UNESCO.
In June 2023, Washington officially requested to rejoin UNESCO at the behest of President Joe Biden. US First Lady Jill Biden attended the ceremony of the United States' return to this organization in July 2023.
As for Israel, it did not rejoin it.
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