RIYADH – A U.N. convention voted Sunday to list ruins of the ancient West Bank town of Jericho as a World Heritage Site in Palestine, a determination most probably to anger Israel, which controls the territory and does no longer acknowledge a Palestinian state.
Jericho is one of the oldest frequently inhabited towns on earth, and is in a phase of the Israeli-occupied West Bank this is administered through the the world over known Palestinian Authority. The record refers to the Tel es-Sultan archaeological website within sight, which incorporates ruins courting again to the ninth millenium B.C.
The determination was once taken at a assembly of the U.N. World Heritage Committee in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, beneath the auspices of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.
Israel hand over 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. But Israel stays a birthday party to the World Heritage Convention, and it sent a delegation to the meeting in Riyadh.
Israel captured the West Bank, together with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast battle. The Palestinians need all 3 territories for his or her long term state. Israel perspectives the West Bank as the biblical and cultural heartland of the Jewish folks.
There had been no critical or substantive peace negotiations in over a decade, and Israel is recently led through essentially the most nationalist and spiritual govt in its historical past, making any transfer towards Palestinian statehood just about unattainable.
The fashionable town of Jericho is a main draw for tourism to the Palestinian territories, each as a result of of its ancient websites and proximity to the Dead Sea. In 2021, the Palestinian Authority unveiled major renovations to one of the most important mosaics in the Middle East, in a Jericho palace courting again to the eighth century.
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