As UNESCO meets, Israel calls on agency to condemn Hezbollah use of Beaufort as military outpost

Israel calls on the UNESCO World Heritage Committee “to reject the cynical weaponization of cultural heritage,” citing Hezbollah’s use of the Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon as a military base.

The 48th session of the committee convenes today in Busan, South Korea.

“For years, Hezbollah has systematically weaponized and desecrated this historic Crusader fortress, converting it into a military stronghold,” Israel says of the castle, which is currently held by IDF forces.

“Hezbollah constructed a massive network of terror tunnels directly beneath the ancient site and launched approximately 400 rockets at Israeli civilians from this compound,” the Foreign Ministry continues in a statement, adding that the Lebanese state “bears full responsibility for allowing a terrorist organization to exploit its sovereign territory and sensitive heritage sites.”

Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets from the Beaufort Ridge toward northern Israel during the current round of fighting, mainly at the border community of Metula, the military says.

“UNESCO’s silence on Hezbollah’s systematic desecration of Beaufort, while targeting Israel’s defensive operations, is a moral abdication,” Israel says.

The Foreign Ministry also blasts the Palestinian delegation to UNESCO for trying to turn the West Bank site of Sebastia into a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“Sebastia is the historic, biblical capital of the ancient Kingdom of Israel,” says the Foreign Ministry. “The attempt to portray the site as facing an emergency is entirely unsupported by professional evaluation, and serves only as a political tool to erase the site’s profound, well-documented Jewish and Christian history. The real threat to Sebastia is the Palestinian Authority’s own record of neglect and complicity, which has allowed the ancient ruins to suffer rampant vandalism, theft, and desecration.”

“UNESCO cannot remain silent when terrorists systematically hijack heritage sites,” the statement continues, “nor can it allow its platform to be exploited to erase well-documented history.”

Israel has accused the organization of being biased against the Jewish state and of diminishing its connection to the Holy Land. Israel also objected to UNESCO’s acceptance of Palestine as a member state. In 2019, during US President Donald Trump’s first term, Israel and the US both quit UNESCO. The US, which subsequently rejoined the agency under former president Joe Biden, is slated to again withdraw at the end of the year.