Israeli soldiers stop Palestinian farmers from Salem village at a checkpoint before entering through a closed gate onto their land to pick olives, east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. AFP
The NGO Emek Shaveh said the Israeli government’s newly approved 200-million-shekel plan to “preserve” and “develop” the ancient site is, in reality, a project to seize hundreds of privately owned Palestinian land parcels, sever the town of Sebastia from its cultural heritage, and create a settler-run tourist site.
“Under the guise of caring for heritage, the Israeli government is investing two hundred million shekels in turning heritage sites into weapons of control, dispossession, and annexation,” the group said. “This is making a mockery of international law."
"What is unfolding is a clear act of weaponising archaeology and cultural heritage for the purpose of land grab, cultural appropriation, and ethnic cleansing.”
The West Bank has been under Israel's occupation since 1967. Israel maintains control over Palestinian land, resources, and movement while expanding settlements deemed illegal by the United Nations and international law.
The NGO's statement follows the Israeli Civil Administration’s expropriation notice covering the entire Sebastia acropolis and surrounding areas, including some 550 privately owned agricultural plots, largely used for olive farming.
But Emek Shaveh said the real aim is to detach the archaeological mound from the living Palestinian town and link it instead to Road 60, creating a tourism complex similar to the settler-operated “City of David” project in occupied East Jerusalem. The NGO said this would destroy “hundreds of years of cultural continuity” and devastate local livelihoods dependent on heritage tourism and olive agriculture.
A UN Independent Commission of Inquiry has already determined that recent Israeli excavations at Sebastia are illegal under international law, the NGO noted. Its statement shows Israel has increasingly used heritage designations, excavations, and development plans as justification for taking control of land in the West Bank.
The expropriation documents reveal that the confiscated area greatly exceeds the archaeological zone itself, encompassing farmland and access routes essential for local residents.
Sebastia, a multilayered archaeological and historic landscape inhabited for millennia, has seen growing Israeli intervention in recent years. According to the NGO’s report, the expropriation order caps a series of measures undertaken since 2019, including: restricting Palestinian access to the site; installing Israeli army infrastructure on parts of the acropolis; reallocating tens of millions of shekels to expand settler-led tourism projects; and advancing legislation to extend Israeli antiquities law into the occupied West Bank, a move Emek Shaveh says amounts to de jure annexation.
Emek Shaveh urged Israeli and international archaeologists to reject the Israeli actions, saying their discipline is being exploited for political ends that violate professional ethics and the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural property.
“We believe heritage professionals, both in Israel and internationally, must take a principled and unequivocal stand,” the NGO said, adding that the Sebastia plan undermines cultural rights and facilitates the displacement of the town’s residents.
West Bank settlement and weapons of de facto annexation
Settlements construction across the West Bank and East Jerusalem has reached unprecedented levels, driven by sweeping changes to governance designed to accelerate expansion and de facto annexation.
In February 2023, Israel shifted civilian authority over the West Bank’s Civil Administration from the Defence Ministry to the Settlement Administration, led by a settler and reporting directly to extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. By June, planning approvals for new construction were also moved under Smotrich’s control, giving settler representatives decisive influence over land and housing policy.
These moves have rapidly sped up settlement growth, with nearly 29,000 plans and tenders advanced in 2024, and an overall 250% rise in settlement planning since 2018. Meanwhile, a new “bypass legalization mechanism” has allowed 70 previously illegal outposts to receive funding and infrastructure without completing formal authorization.
The expansion has resulted in massive displacement of Palestinians. Between May and July 2025, more than 39,000 people were forced from their homes, mainly from refugees camps of Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm.
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