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UNESCO Adds 47 New Sites to World Heritage List, Including Saudi Arabia's Uruq Bani Ma'arid Reserve

UNESCO finalized the addition of 47 new sites to its World Heritage List, including Saudi Arabia’s Uruq Bani Ma'arid Reserve. (Getty Images/AFP)
UNESCO finalized the addition of 47 new sites to its World Heritage List, including Saudi Arabia’s Uruq Bani Ma'arid Reserve. (Getty Images/AFP)
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UNESCO Adds 47 New Sites to World Heritage List, Including Saudi Arabia's Uruq Bani Ma'arid Reserve

UNESCO finalized the addition of 47 new sites to its World Heritage List, including Saudi Arabia’s Uruq Bani Ma'arid Reserve. (Getty Images/AFP)
UNESCO finalized the addition of 47 new sites to its World Heritage List, including Saudi Arabia’s Uruq Bani Ma'arid Reserve. (Getty Images/AFP)

The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) finalized the addition of 47 new sites to its World Heritage List, including Saudi Arabia’s Uruq Bani Ma'arid Reserve, reported the Saudi Press Agency on Saturday.

Member states nominated 50 natural, cultural, and mixed sites during the 45th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee held in Riyadh from September 10 to 25.

The committee postponed the addition of one of the sites, rejected another, and approved the extension of five other World Heritage sites, UNESCO said in a statement.

The new additions included two Arab sites besides the Saudi reserve -- Palestine’s Ancient Jericho and Tunisia’s Djerba Island.

Mohlago Flora Mokgohloa of South Africa, who presided over the session adding the Saudi reserve, expressed gratitude for the delegations participating in the meetings and hailed Kingdom’s warm hospitality.

“We feel inspired by all the developments we see in the Kingdom,” she said. “These are big steps towards expanding the biodiversity and environmental preservation.”

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UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
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UN Puts 4th Century Gaza Monastery on Endangered Site List

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File
The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century. Mahmud HAMS / AFP/File

The Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, has been put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites in danger due to the war in Gaza, the body said Friday.
UNESCO said the site, which dates back to the fourth century, had been put on the endangered list at the demand of Palestinian authorities and cited the "imminent threats" it faced.
"It's the only recourse to protect the site from destruction in the current context," Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, told AFP, referring to the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
In December, the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict decided to grant "provisional enhanced protection" -- the highest level of immunity established by the 1954 Hague Convention -- to the site.
UNESCO had then said it was "already concerned about the state of conservation of sites, before October 7, due to the lack of adequate policies to protect heritage and culture" in Gaza.
The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.