TPC Staff
The Palestine Chronicle / August 9, 2026
Israel is expanding control over ancient West Bank sites, prompting accusations that archaeology is being weaponized to seize Palestinian land.
Israel is expanding its control over major archaeological sites across the occupied West Bank, with Palestinian residents and Israeli activists warning that the preservation of ancient heritage is increasingly being used as a mechanism for land seizure and settlement expansion.
A BBC report from Sebastia, an ancient Palestinian village northwest of Nablus, documented how Israeli occupation authorities are moving to take possession of approximately 450 acres of land surrounding one of the occupied West Bank’s most significant archaeological sites.
The move comes alongside a broader Israeli government push to assert control over archaeological and so-called Jewish heritage sites throughout the occupied Palestinian territory.
Last week, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the allocation of approximately 113 million shekels ($37 million) for the development of more than 70 heritage sites in what he called “Judea and Samaria,” the biblical terminology used by Israeli officials for the occupied West Bank.
The expanding archaeological project is raising a fundamental question extending far beyond the preservation of ancient ruins: whether control over the Palestinian past is becoming another instrument for controlling Palestinian land in the present.
‘Like having your soul ripped away’
Sebastia contains archaeological remains spanning thousands of years, including traces of ancient Jewish history as well as Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, Islamic and Ottoman periods.
But surrounding the archaeological site are Palestinian olive groves cultivated by local families for generations.
One landowner, identified by the BBC as Abu Mudif, said he had been notified that his property forms part of roughly 450 acres Israeli authorities intend to take possession of as part of plans to protect and develop the archaeological area into a major national park.
For Abu Mudif, the loss cannot simply be measured financially. “If I wanted to describe it, the closest description I can give is that it is like having your soul ripped away,” he told the BBC.
“I cannot imagine myself without my land.”
Palestinian landowners typically receive little or no compensation when their land is expropriated. According to the BBC, many refuse compensation even when offered because accepting payment would, in their view, legitimize the seizure of their ancestral property.
Local restaurant owner Nahed Sakha said the Israeli project appears designed to progressively separate Sebastia’s Palestinian residents from the archaeological site itself.
“Restoration work has now begun along with excavations,” he said. “Landowners were told that no-one would be allowed to use or plough their land.”
UNESCO steps In
The growing threat to Sebastia has now drawn international intervention. On July 25, UNESCO added the site to its World Heritage List through an emergency procedure and simultaneously placed it on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
According to UNESCO, one of the principal threats is the planned expropriation and establishment of the Israeli “Samaria” national park, which the organization warned “could divide the property.”
The site’s geography reflects the fragmented political reality imposed on the occupied West Bank.
Part of Sebastia lies in Area B, where the Palestinian Authority exercises limited civil control while Israel retains overriding security authority. Another section lies in Area C, which remains under full Israeli military and administrative control.
Sebastia Mayor Mohammed Azem told the BBC that Palestinians are increasingly concerned that even ordinary efforts to maintain the archaeological area could trigger confrontations with Israeli forces or Jewish settlers.
The Israeli plans would also reportedly move the site’s principal entrance away from the Palestinian village, its existing parking area and local businesses to the opposite side of the archaeological complex.
Such a move could effectively sever the economic and physical relationship between Palestinian residents and a heritage site around which their community has existed for generations.
‘Israel is not the owner of this place’
Israeli opposition to the project is also emerging from archaeologists and activists who reject the use of heritage as an instrument of territorial control.
Alon Arad heads Emek Shaveh, an Israeli organization advocating for archaeological heritage to remain accessible to all communities.
Standing among the remains of Sebastia’s Roman theater, Arad told the BBC that Israeli authorities had bypassed consultation with the Palestinian municipality and local residents.
“Israel is not the owner of this place,” he said.
“This is a Palestinian heritage site. And in order to develop it in a positive way, it has to be done with the local community, with the municipality, so they can benefit.”
The Palestinian tourism and foreign ministries hope UNESCO’s intervention will strengthen international opposition to the Israeli land seizures.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, however, attacked UNESCO’s decision, portraying it as an attempt to diminish historic Jewish connections to the occupied West Bank.
“No vote in an international organization can change history,” Saar said.
Herodium: another 80 acres
Sebastia is not an isolated case. Farther south, near Bethlehem and within sight of Jerusalem, Israeli authorities have begun another land expropriation surrounding Herodium, the hilltop palace and fortress constructed by King Herod.
Approximately 80 acres are being taken for what Israeli authorities describe as the site’s “preservation and development,” according to the BBC.
Jewish settlement watchdog Peace Now questioned the legal basis for the move.
“Under international law, as well as according to rulings of the Israeli Supreme Court, Israel is prohibited from expropriating land for settlement purposes or exclusively for the benefit of Israeli citizens,” the organization said.
Peace Now argued that Israel would therefore probably maintain that the development benefits Palestinians as well as Israelis, despite what the organization described as the project’s apparent connection to “settlement expansion and Israeli control.”
From archaeology to political control
The controversy comes amid efforts by members of Israel’s far-right government to fundamentally change who controls archaeological sites in the occupied West Bank.
Earlier this year, legislation was introduced that would transfer authority over archaeological sites from Israel’s Civil Administration — the military body governing much of the occupied territory — to the Israeli Heritage Ministry.
The proposed legislation would grant extensive powers to seize Palestinian land ostensibly for archaeological preservation.
It passed its first reading in the Israeli parliament in May but has since been placed on hold ahead of elections.
The fact that such legislation reached parliament at all, however, is significant for critics of Israel’s archaeological policies.
Arad argued that the process demonstrates how archaeology can function simultaneously as an ideological and territorial instrument.
“This is exactly how the mechanism works,” he told the BBC.
“You use archaeology, you use it in order to do excavations and to the narrative, to rewrite history, but you also use it in order to allocate lands or reallocate lands from Palestinian to Israeli.”
Ancient history, present-day annexation
The controversy surrounding Sebastia and Herodium comes amid an accelerating Israeli drive to consolidate control over the occupied West Bank.
Smotrich recently announced that 113 million shekels would be directed toward more than 70 heritage sites across the territory, without publicly identifying all the locations involved.
The initiative coincides with unprecedented illegal Jewish settlement expansion and increasingly explicit efforts by members of Israel’s government to extend Israeli sovereignty over the occupied territory.
Under international law, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, remains occupied Palestinian territory, and Jewish settlements there are illegal.
For Palestinians in Sebastia, however, the issue is not an abstract debate about archaeology or competing interpretations of antiquity.
It concerns who can cultivate the olive groves, who controls access to the ruins, who benefits economically from visitors, and ultimately who is permitted to remain on the land.
The struggle over the occupied West Bank’s future is therefore increasingly extending into its distant past.
As Israel expands its authority over archaeological sites, Palestinians and Israeli critics warn that ancient stones are being enlisted in a thoroughly modern project: transforming control over history into control over territory.
(BBC, QNN, PC)
