Unesco urged to investigate after Israeli forces trigger explosions near Lebanon’s World Heritage-listed Beaufort Castle

On 30 July, Israeli forces detonated 700 tonnes of explosives near Beaufort Castle (Qalaat Al Shaqif) in southern Lebanon, prompting Icomos Lebanon to urge Unesco to investigate. Lebanon’s National Centre for Geophysics recorded seismic waves equivalent to a 3.8-magnitude earthquake after the blasts, which a Lebanese official said occurred about 800 metres from the 12th-century Crusader-era site. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz said the explosives were used to destroy “terror tunnels in the Beaufort area,” which Israel claims were part of Hezbollah infrastructure. Lebanon’s ministry of culture said the castle was not destroyed but may have been damaged, and that assessment is impossible while the area remains under Israeli occupation; the site was added to Unesco’s World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger on 25 July at the committee’s 48th session in Busan, South Korea.

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