Israel cries foul after a UN conference votes to list the ruins near the ancient West Bank city of Ariha as a “World Heritage Site in Palestine”.

Ariha or Jericho is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities on earth, and is in a part of the West Bank that is administered by the Palestinian Authority.

The listing refers to the Tel es-Sultan archaeological site nearby, which contains prehistoric ruins dating back to the ninth millennium BCE and is outside the ancient city itself.

The vote was held during a meeting of the World Heritage Committee, overseen by the UN cultural agency UNESCO, in the Saudi capital city of Riyadh on Sunday.

It is the fourth site in the occupied West Bank to receive UN recognition as a World Heritage Site. The Church of the Nativity and the pilgrimage route in Bethlehem, the cultural landscape of southern al-Quds and Battir, and the Old City in al-Khalil the other sites.

“The natural resources and strategic location of Ancient Jericho/Tell es-Sultan made it ... a major node of human development for millennia,” the Palestinian Tourism and Antiquities Ministry wrote in an executive summary for the committee.

Jericho is one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited places, where excavations have unearthed traces of Neolithic populations and materials from the Early and Middle Bronze Ages.

Palestinians hail designation

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that UNSCO’s decision “testifies to the authenticity and history of the Palestinian people,” adding that “the state of Palestine is committed to preserving this unique site for the benefit of mankind.”

Similarly, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry lauded the designation as an acknowledgment of Jericho’s “cultural, economic, and political significance” and a testament to “10,000 years of human development.”

However, the move drew Israel’s ire, with the regime’s foreign ministry claiming that it was “another sign of the Palestinians’ cynical use of UNESCO and their politicization of it.”

Israel quit UNESCO in 2019, accusing it of being biased against the occupying entity. But Palestine has been a full member of the Paris-based agency since 2011.