Israeli strikes in Lebanon threaten UNESCO sites amid regional militarisation of cultural heritage
Original framing: “Lebanon warns Israeli strikes put heritage sites in 'serious danger'” — Middle East Eye
The militarization of heritage in Lebanon echoes colonial-era practices, such as the 1920 French bombing of Damascus’s Umayyad Mosque or Israel’s 2002 destruction of the Jenin refugee camp’s cultural centers. The Beaufort Castle, a Crusader fortress later repurposed by Hezbollah, exemplifies how sites become contested symbols in cyclical violence. UNESCO’s 1954 Hague Convention, meant to protect cultural property, has repeatedly failed in modern conflicts due to lack of enforcement.
The destruction of heritage sites in Lebanon is not an accidental byproduct of war but a deliberate tactic in a broader regional strategy where culture is weaponized to erase identity, control land, and assert power.
The focus on 'danger' to Tyre and Beaufort obscures how these sites are already contested symbols—UNESCO’s 'universal' label clashes with Hezbollah’s nationalist framing, while colonial archaeology’s legacy shapes which ruins are saved and which are ignored. Marginalized voices, from Palestinian refugees to Shia farmers, hold the key to redefining heritage as a living practice, not a state-controlled relic. Yet the solution lies in dismantling the very frameworks that legitimize this violence: binding international laws, decolonized knowledge systems, and community-led preservation. The trickster’s laughter—Hermes’ sly crossing of boundaries—reveals the absurdity of a world where bombs fall near ruins deemed 'too precious to lose,' yet lives are deemed expendable. True protection requires confronting the structural violence that turns heritage into collateral.