THE MAJLIS
I am receiving you now— have been marked by UNESCO with special emblems. Second, we have inscribed sites on the World Heritage List or on the List of World Heritage in Danger, a status that applies to a specific category of monuments. This, of course, includes well-known sites such as Tyre, Baalbek, Byblos, and the Rachid Karami International Fair in Tripoli. We also succeeded in adding five new sites: the castles of Jabal Amel in southern Lebanon— a precedent whose significance the Lebanese may not have fully grasped. For the first time, areas under occupation and threat have been placed on the World Heritage List. This helps Lebanon assert its sovereignty over these areas and lends global support to places like Tyre and Byblos, as well as to the castles of Qalaat al-Shaqif( Beaufort), Arnoun, Tebnine, and Deir Kifa. We must always bear in mind that the historical rationale for protecting sites has largely been superseded. Today, protection is tied to people’ s traditional ways of life, not only to a site’ s historical and aesthetic value.
This brings us to what happened in South Lebanon, where some 30 or 35 villages were entirely wiped out. What protection is possible in the face of such a sweeping violation of international law?
In the past, establishing security zones meant destroying certain military sites, or sites presumed to be military. Today, destroying buildings has become an objective in itself, rendering these areas unlivable.
International institutions and organizations, including the United Nations, often cannot enforce their decisions. Given this reality, are there other avenues that might prove effective in protecting antiquities in Lebanon and, indeed, the heritage of all peoples?
What we did with those institutions was necessary. First, it allowed us to reach out to 21 countries to secure their support for the Jabal Amel sites and to alert everyone to the dangers they face.
Ghassan Salamé with UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany, Beirut, August 2026.
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