“A breath of fresh air”this is how French archaeologist René Elter received the news on Friday, July 26. The monastery of Saint-Hilarion, whose excavations he has been directing for twenty years in the Gaza Strip, has just joined the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage List, during the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, held in New Delhi. The remains of the early Christian monastery immediately join another list, that of World Heritage in Danger, in the context of an Israeli offensive against Hamas that is dragging on.
Exceptionally, the application file could not be subject to an evaluation by ICOMOS, UNESCO’s advisory body: “I have instructed my team to immediately launch the evaluation procedure, knowing that the organization of a technical evaluation mission on the nominated property would not be possible due to the current security conditions”explains Gwenaëlle Bourdin, director of the evaluation mission in a letter addressed to Lazare Eloundou, director of the world heritage committee.
“While the nominated property does not appear to have suffered substantial damage so far, the threats it faces from the ongoing armed conflict are serious enough to warrant the implementation of an emergency procedure”adds Gwenaëlle Bourdin, who also specifies that ICOMOS cannot decide on the inscription and the exceptional universal value of the property, in the absence of an evaluation mission.
The Saint Hilarion Monastery dates back to the 4th century, making it one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the Near East. Excavations of the Byzantine monastery have revealed exceptional elements, such as the steam baths, reused in the Umayyad period. Several large early Christian mosaics have been unearthed there, such as the one above the Saint Hilarion tomb.
Funded by the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), the monastery excavation site led by the French Biblical School of Archaeology in Jerusalem is also a training center for Gazan archaeologists.
In January 2024, UNESCO added the site to its list of cultural property under enhanced protection, granting it the highest level of immunity provided for by the Hague Convention. The UN body also monitors heritage destruction in the Gaza Strip using satellite imagery, a technique tested during the first months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.