Israel Says It Will Ensure Safety of Lebanon’s Cultural Heritage Sites

Israel said Thursday that it would ensure the safety of Lebanon’s cultural heritage sites, even as it evacuates cities that are near ancient ruins and archaeological treasures.

Many residents of Lebanon have expressed concern this week as the Israeli military has ordered evacuations in the city of Baalbek, in northeastern Lebanon.

The city is far from the region of southern Lebanon from which Hezbollah terrorists have been firing at Israel for more than a year, but Hezbollah has established a significant presence in the city, which is near the Syrian border, across which Hezbollah smuggles weapons supplied by the Iranian regime.

Baalbek includes Roman ruins that are listed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and that are, the BBC notes, “are among the largest and best-preserved in the world.”

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told a press briefing, in response to questions from Breitbart News, that that Israel had seen reports of requests to ensure that historical sites will not fall within the range of fire.

“The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will, of course, ensure that is always the case,” Mencer said. However, he added that “ultimately, it is the fault of Hezbollah” that war had reached such areas, due to its decision to attack Israel without provocation over the past year.

He noted that the number of people evacuated from their homes in Israel was currently 58,000, “due to the incessant rocket fire,” which had killed 64 people and wounded 603, even before five more were killed and one wounded in an attack earlier in the day.

The border had been quiet for 17 years when Hezbollah began firing at Israel on October 8, after the Hamas terror attack.

In 2022, Israel and Lebanon signed a deal for the development of offshore natural gas resources, under which Israel gave up gas fields that were within its territorial waters in the hope that doing so would discourage Hezbollah from launching future wars.

Asked whether that had been a mistake, Mencer said that Israel would be “changing our strategy moving forward,” though stressing that Israel still sought peace with Lebanon and the Lebanese people.

He noted that while several Arab states have been willing to make peace with Israel, including through the Abraham Accords, the Iranian regime has “decided to develop its own empire, in which there is no place for the state of Israel,” which led to the current war, as Hezbollah is controlled by Iran.

Israel had dealt Iran a “crushing blow,” Mencer said, and would continued to confront Iran over its efforts to disrupt relations between Israel and the Arab states.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.