King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Festival to Kick Off in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qurayyat

The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Development Authority logo
The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Development Authority logo
TT

King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Festival to Kick Off in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qurayyat

The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Development Authority logo
The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Development Authority logo

The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve Festival, organized by the Reserve Development Authority, will take place from April 14 to 18 at the Cultural Center in Al-Qurayyat Governorate.

The festival aims to showcase tourist and recreational sites within the reserve and encourage local community involvement in reserve activities.

The festival offers a variety of events that will take visitors on a fun journey through recreational, cultural, artistic, and awareness activities. These include a children's area with games and drawing, an afforestation and planting area to promote afforestation culture and vegetation development, an artisan's market that celebrates Saudi heritage and traditional crafts, a wildlife area, and a performing arts theater.

The theater will present cultural shows and segments highlighting heritage, history, poetry evenings, theatrical performances, and folk arts.

The King Salman bin Abdulaziz Royal Reserve is the largest wildlife reserve in the Middle East, spanning over 130,000 square kilometers. It has archaeological sites registered with the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).



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
TT

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.