From a distant hilltop simply north of Nablus, the view stretches throughout the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlements, Palestinian villages and the winding roads and checkpoints that join – and divide – them.
Scattered amongst the olive groves beneath lie hundreds of years of historical past: the stays of an historic palace, a Roman theater and weathered columns which have outlasted empires. Sebastia is one among the most layered archaeological websites in the Middle East. And proper now, it’s a flashpoint in a fight between Israeli and Palestinain authorities over land, heritage and narrative.
Over the past 12 months, Israel has moved to grab roughly 500 acres of privately owned Palestinian land round the city of Sebastia, a small Palestinian hamlet with a wealthy archaeological web site. The authorities allotted $10 million to develop the web site into a vacationer attraction.
The Palestinian Authority, in flip, is racing to get Sebastia urgently acknowledged as a UNESCO World Heritage web site, a bid the group is debating this month in South Korea. Each aspect believes the land – and its past – belongs to them.
Sebastia’s historical past goes again at the least 3,000 years. Archeologists determine it as historic Samaria, capital of the biblical Kingdom of Israel. Herod the Great later rebuilt it, renamed it Sebastia, and added monumental buildings that survived via the Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Crusader intervals. In the neighboring city, native custom additionally locations it as the burial web site of John the Baptist.
Today, all of those layers are entangled in the Israeli-Palestinian battle, the place the battle over territory and historical past converge.
Sebastia’s archaeological mound lies in Area C of the West Bank, beneath full Israeli civil and safety management in response to the Oslo Accords, whereas the adjoining city and its tourism infrastructure sit in space B, beneath blended Palestinian-Israeli jurisdiction.
That dividing line is a rising supply of concern for the city’s residents, whose economic system largely depends upon tourism and agriculture. Locals say they’ve already been barred from fundamental preservation work on ruins in the Israeli -controlled aspect. They concern the newest land seizure might sever their entry altogether.
“For us, this is our heart and our memory at the same time,” mentioned Zaid Azhari, a native tourism developer. “With this expropriation order, it means we are losing our heart – losing access to our land and to the site. I cannot imagine Sebastia without the archaeological site,” he advised NCS. “It’s like your children – you cannot leave one of them.”
Azhari, who is one among the leaders of the “Save Sebastia” marketing campaign, mentioned that friction with troopers and settlers has made every day life tougher for years, warning that the confiscation order might cripple the city’s economic system, from tourism to olive harvesting. “If we cannot access them, the whole economic circle of Sebastia will be destroyed.”
Sebastia is just one piece of a wider push. Since 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing authorities has invested greater than 250 million shekels (about $82 million) in West Bank archaeological websites via a program known as “Road, Land, Heritage,” overseen by Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu of the far-right Otzma Yehudit get together. The program focuses on websites with Jewish historic significance – amongst them Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs and Herodium, the fortified desert palace of Herod the Great, whereas Islamic and Christian heritage websites in the identical areas are largely excluded.
“Almost every stone and heritage site contains thousands of years of Jewish history,” Netanyahu mentioned in May, as his authorities accepted one other spherical of funding.”We are investing in preserving our past to safe our future.”
Eliyahu has pushed additional, proposing a “West Bank Heritage Authority” that may shift archaeological management from the navy’s Civil Administration to his personal ministry. However, Israeli officers advised NCS Netanyahu shelved the laws amid concern over worldwide backlash.
Eliyahu frames the effort as preservation and rescue of uncared for heritage websites, which he says have suffered from many years of Palestinian looting, injury and destruction.
“I am not willing to have the story of the Jewish people destroyed, dismantled, or erased,” Eliyahu advised NCS, describing his work as restoring the “true story” of Sebastia and different West Bank websites.
Eliyahu, who is thought for floating a nuclear strike on Gaza in 2023 as “one option,” rejected the premise that the land in query is Palestinian to start with. “The area is Israeli territory. It belongs to the Jewish people,” he mentioned. “The facts are irrevocable. What are you suggesting that we let them erase our heritage? The fact is that this is the land of our fathers and mothers.”
Israeli watchdog teams inform a totally different story.
“The government’s only interest is Jewish heritage, erasing thousands of years of human existence in this area,” mentioned Alon Arad, director of the Israeli group Emek Shaveh, which tracks archaeology in the West Bank.
Arad argues that the coverage is much less about preservation than about territorial management. “Eliyahu doesn’t care about antiquities. He wants to annex. The antiquities are just the excuse, part of a much more serious process, creating a correlation between heritage and sovereignty,”, he advised NCS. “Archaeology is used as a tool.”
He dismissed Eliyahu’s claims of systematic Palestinian neglect of antiquities as “a highly cynical argument” and says there was no knowledge to assist it.
The Palestinian Authority is now lobbying to maneuver Sebastia from UNESCO’s tentative checklist, the place it has sat since 2012, to the full World Heritage checklist, and Arad hopes UNESCO inscription would possibly restrain additional Israeli actions.
Eliyahu, for his half, mentioned: “UNESCO can say whatever it wants. If it tries to go against the truth and invent narratives it will not succeed.”
The West Bank is house to hundreds of archaeological websites – estimates vary from 2,600 to as many as 6,000 – reflecting its lengthy historical past as a crossroads of civilizations. Sebastia is a testcase to a battle not simply over the past, however about the current and the future of the territory and the folks who dwell close to its historic stones.