UNESCO grants enhanced protection to Gaza's Saint Hilarion Monastery

ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR: Ancient Saint Hilarion Monastry in the Gaza Strip gains enhanced protection from Unesco. The archaelogical site, which dates back to the fourth century, has reportedly sustained damage during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war (Sarvy Geranpayeh, The Art Newspaper).

Due to the impossibility of assessing the damage on site, Unesco experts have been monitoring the situation remotely “using satellite data and information transmitted by third parties”, a Unesco spokesperson says. “Unesco is particularly concerned about the situation of the ruins of Saint Hilarion.”

At a meeting on 14 December, Unesco’s Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict decided to grant provisional enhanced protection to Saint Hilarion—the highest level of immunity against attacks established by the 1954 Hague Convention and its Second Protocol.

For more on the Saint Hilarion Monastery, see here and links. My comments there still apply, more than ever.

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