(Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP) (Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)
World heritage is rarely exempt from war, as 2024 proved in the cases of Israel and its enemies in the Middle East, and Ukraine and Russia. Amid each clash, monuments, religious landmarks, and ancient ruins—cultural property defined by the Hague as “immovable” sites with immense value to history—were variably threatened, damaged, or outright destroyed. That is to say, UNESCO, the cultural arm of the United Nations, had a busy year.
This November, UNESCO reported that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, 468 sites, including 145 religious sites, 238 structures of “historical and/or artistic interest”, and 32 museums, had been damaged. As of April, that amounted to $2.5 billion in damages to Ukrainian cultural property, and roughly $3.5 billion in financial losses.
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Additionally, more than 15,000 pieces of Ukrainian fine art and artifacts have been reported as missing following reports of the systematic plunder of Ukrainian museums by Russian forces, which is a war crime. In April, the Kherson Art Museum in Ukraine identified 100 paintings allegedly looted by Russian troops in a video filmed in a museum in the annexed Crimea. The museum said that the 100 works of art captured on camera likely represent “less than 1 percent” of the works pilfered by Russia from Ukraine since 2022.
A few weeks later, Ukraine also accused Russia of transforming Tauric Chersonese in Crimea, a UNESCO World Heritage Site—a designation that is intended to impart special protections—into a “historical and archaeological park,” and appealed to the UN to protect the site, describing its redevelopment as part of Russia’s plan to destroy Ukrainian heritage.
In a report, Evelina Kravchenko, from the Institute of Archaeology of Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, said Tauric Chersonese had been “disturbed” and “tens of thousands of finds” were destroyed. “Some of them were picked up from these dumps by local people both for personal storage and for sale on the black market,” Kravchenko said. “Thus, soon we will be able to see things from Chersonesos on online auctions.”
In September, Sudan‘s ongoing civil war reached its cultural heritage, with local reports of rampant looting and destruction reaching the international press. The northeast African country’s cultural institutions have been imperiled since the power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted into civil war, a conflict that has threatened nearly 25 million Sudanese civilians with displacement and famine. The National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum has experienced looting by members of the RSF, as well as the M Bolheim Bioarchaeology Laboratory in Khartoum. (The RSF has previously denied accusations of looting, saying at the onset of the conflict in April 2023 that it was safeguarding cultural property; that statement was disproven by video surveillance footage shared by Middle East Eye.)
In July, the nonprofit Heritage for Peace reported that several cultural archives have been lost, including those maintained by the Mohamed Omer Bashir Centre for Sudanese Studies at Omdurman Ahlia University and the Abdul Karim Mirghani Center, which was at the time digitizing its material history of local labor movements.
Meanwhile, Israel’s ground and air assault of Gaza, which reached its one-year mark this October has claimed more than 200 cultural landmarks and historic site including mosques, churches, libraries, and art institutions. In July, UNESCO added the ancient Saint Hilarion Monastery, also known as Tell Umm Amer, in Gaza to its endangered sites list. Saint Hilarion Monastery, is one the oldest and most complex religious sites in the region, dating to the 4th century CE, and was home to the first monastic community in the Levant. It had been on the organization’s tentative heritage list since 2012, but its confirmation was fast-tracked given the dire circumstances.
“UNESCO expresses deep concern about the impact of the ongoing conflict on cultural heritage, particularly in the Gaza Strip,” the agency said in a statement at the time. “The organization urges all involved parties to strictly adhere to international law, emphasizing that cultural property should not be targeted or used for military purposes, as it is considered civilian infrastructure.”
More than 44,000 people have been killed during Israel’s war in Gaza, according to the local health ministry. An analysis by the UN’s Human Rights Office determined that 70 percent of the war’s victims are women and children.
And, in September, Israel’s military campaign expanded to Lebanon, when hundreds of pagers allegedly used by members of the militant group Hezbollah were remotely detonated across the country. Since then—following appeals from Lebanese cultural professionals—UNESCO has added 34 cultural properties in Lebanon to its enhanced protections list, which promises them the highest level of protection against attack. “Non-compliance with these clauses would constitute ‘serious violations’ of the 1954 Hague Convention and would constitute potential grounds for prosecution,” the agency said in a statement in November.
The decision was reached in an emergency session of the committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, following Israeli air strikes on the ancient Lebanese cities of Baalbek and Tyre, which are home to two of the country’s six sites inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list. That month, Lebanon’s state news agency reported that Israel had struck Tyre’s historic district which contains some of the world’s best preserved Roman ruins, including a large hippodrome.
Other “cultural properties” promised enhanced protections by UNESCO include the Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum in Beirut, which has closed due to the conflict, the National Museum of Beirut, and the Majdel Anjar Temple, a major Roman temple dating to 41 CE and located in West Bekaa.
Though a ceasefire agreement was achieved between Israel and Lebanon on November 27, Israel has been accused of at least 129 violations of the accord since. Sudan, Palestine, and Ukraine will enter 2025 still embroiled in war. Those countries’ cultural heritage remains in peril.
Read more of our “2024: Year in Review” coverage here.
