UNESCO to vote on adding Ibrahimi Mosque to World Heritage list

Alaa Shaheen, director of the project, said during a meeting in Poland on Friday that the organization is set to vote on adding Hebron’s Old City to the list of World Heritage sites, Taqrib News Agency (TNA) reported Middle East Monitor as saying.

He referred to efforts by Israel to undermine the vote, noting that the Israeli occupation authorities have been “preventing the PA from taking care of the Palestinian heritage sites in the Old City and prevents tourists from accessing them.”

This is taken as a political issue when Israeli and American pressure is of importance in such a proposed vote.

During an UNESCO event about empowering woman held in Paris on Sunday, the former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni described this proposal as "provocative" and called for UNSECO not to schedule it for a vote.

This is while US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley sent a letter to the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Pokova, and also the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urging for opposition with the proposal.

According to Israeli news sites, Haley said: “I hope you will join the United States in opposing this measure” which she called “ill-timed and unfortunate”.

“Such a designation risks undermining the seriousness such an assessment by UNESCO should have.”

KD