Baalbek’s ancient ruins at risk by Israeli bombing, archaeologists warn

For over two millennia, the Roman temples at Baalbek in japanese Lebanon have stood as a number of the best examples of Roman structure anyplace on the earth.

On Wednesday, a carpark simply metres away from the Unesco World Heritage website was hit by an Israeli air strike.

The assault, which additionally destroyed a centuries-old Ottoman constructing, highlighted what some archaeologists say is the danger of irreparable harm to historic websites throughout Lebanon from the present struggle between Israel and Hezbollah.

“Baalbek is the major Roman site in Lebanon. You couldn’t replace it if someone bombed it,” says Graham Philip, an archaeology professor at Durham University.

“It would be a huge loss. It would be a crime.”

Since late September, Israel has pummelled Lebanon with 1000’s of air strikes in an escalation of its marketing campaign towards Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group it has been preventing in practically a yr of cross-border strikes.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has largely been focusing on southern Lebanon, suburbs within the capital Beirut and the japanese Bekaa Valley.

But prior to now fortnight, the marketing campaign has moved into new areas, or reasonably, very previous floor.

The IDF advised the BBC that it solely targets army websites. But these targets are extremely near the Baalbek temples and Roman ruins in Tyre, a significant port of the Phoenician Empire round 2,500 years in the past.

According to legend, Tyre is the place the place purple pigment was first created – the dye crushed out of snail shells to embroider royal robes.

On 23 October, the IDF issued evacuation orders for neighbourhoods near the town’s Roman ruins, together with the stays of a necropolis and a hippodrome.

Hours later it started putting targets. More bombing of the websites was reported final week.

Videos from the strikes confirmed enormous clouds of black smoke rising from seafront areas just a few hundred metres from the ruins.

There is not any proof that the Roman websites in Tyre and Baalbek have been broken by the Israeli strikes. But Lebanese archaeologists are alarmed at how shut the preventing has been to the millennia-old ruins, recognised by Unesco as having excellent worth to humanity.

“For Baalbek it was even worse than Tyre, because the temples are located within the area that is targeted and [the IDF] did not make any exemption for the temples,” says native archaeologist Joanne Farchakh Bajjaly.

She says there aren’t any Hezbollah services on the Baalbek website: “No one knows what the excuse or the message behind the hit is.”

The IDF disputes this. In a press release, it advised the BBC it targets army websites in accordance with strict protocol, including that it’s “aware of the existence of sensitive sites and this is taken into account and constitutes an essential part of the planning of strikes”.

“Each strike that poses a risk to a sensitive structure is weighed carefully and goes through a rigorous approval process as required.”

Some unusual Lebanese trying to flee Israeli bombing reportedly fled to the Baalbek ruins, judging that historical websites wouldn’t be focused by Israel and would subsequently supply safety.

Ms Farchakh Bajjaly says “those who didn’t have a car to flee” moved nearer to the ruins, within the perception that the Unesco websites are thought of extra invaluable than their lives.

It prompted the native authorities to problem a warning urging individuals towards travelling to the ruins.

“They see the site as their shelter. But the site is not a shelter,” Ms Farchakh Bajjaly says.

The struggle places Israel in a “difficult situation”, says Israeli archaeologist Erez Ben-Yosef.

He mentioned that struggle harm to necessary archaeological websites can be a “huge loss to the cultural heritage of Lebanon and indeed the entire world.

“However, I do know personally that Israel is doing every part it might probably to forestall such harm.

“Many of my fellow archaeologists, both colleagues and students, serve in the army and participate in the war… they actively work to prevent such damage, in accordance with the general guidelines of our military.”

Graham Philip, the Durham University archaeology professor, says he doesn’t consider Israel would deliberately hit Baalbek or different websites.

“It’s hard to see what they would gain in a military sense, bombing a Roman temple.”

But he cautioned concerning the threat of some bombs or missiles going off beam and hitting the ruins, even unintentionally: “If you drop enough ordnance, not all of that lands within 25 metres of the target.”

Mr Philip has been intently monitoring the influence of Israel’s strikes on heritage websites in Gaza the place it’s preventing Hamas, main a British university team documenting archaeological destruction throughout the territory.

He says it’s nonetheless too early to evaluate how a lot harm has been accomplished by the present wars in Lebanon and Gaza. But a Unesco survey revealed in September discovered that 69 cultural heritage websites in Gaza had been broken by the struggle, which was triggered by the Hamas assaults of seven October 2023.

The oldest mosque in Gaza, the Great Omari Mosque, is one. It was constructed on the location of an historical Philistine temple earlier than being transformed right into a church after which a mosque. It was reportedly largely destroyed by an Israeli strike in December 2023.

Mr Philip says these historical websites are usually not solely necessary anchors to the classical previous, however are “almost like the soul of a population”.

“Imagine how people would feel in Britain if the Tower of London or Stonehenge were destroyed.

“It’s a part of their identification.”