A remote hilltop just north of Nablus offers views of the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlements, Palestinian villages, and the winding roads and checkpoints that connect and divide them.
The olive groves below are dotted with thousands of years of history. It’s the ruins of ancient palaces, Roman theaters, and weathered columns that have survived the imperial era. Sebastia is one of the most hierarchical archaeological sites in the Middle East. And now it is a flashpoint in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over land, heritage and narrative.
Over the past year, Israel has moved to seize approximately 500 acres of private Palestinian land around the town of Sebastia, a small Palestinian settlement rich in archaeological sites. The government has allocated $10 million to develop the site as a tourist attraction.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority is rushing to urgently recognize Sebastia as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the organization is discussing the proposal in South Korea this month. Both sides believe the land and its past belong to them.
Sebastia’s history dates back at least 3,000 years. Archaeologists have identified it as ancient Samaria, the capital of the Biblical kingdom of Israel. Herod the Great later rebuilt it, renamed it Sebastian, and added monumental structures that survived through the Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and Crusader periods. In the neighboring town, local tradition holds that this is the burial place of John the Baptist.
Today, all these layers are involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where the battle for territory and history is converging.
The ruins of Sebastia are located in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli civil and security control under the Oslo Accords, while the adjacent town and its tourist infrastructure are located in Area B, which is under mixed Palestinian and Israeli jurisdiction.
The border is a source of concern for residents of the town, whose economy relies primarily on tourism and agriculture. Local residents say basic conservation work on Israeli-controlled sites has already been prohibited. They fear that the latest land seizure could completely cut off access.
“For us, this is our heart and at the same time our memories,” said local tourism developer Zaid Azhari. “This expropriation order means we are losing our minds and losing access to our land and our ruins. We cannot imagine Sebastia without our ruins,” he told CNN. “It’s like your children. You can’t leave one of them.”
Azhari, one of the leaders of the Save Sebastia campaign, said friction with soldiers and settlers had made daily life difficult for years and warned that the confiscation order could cripple the town’s economy, from tourism to the olive harvest. “If we don’t have access, the entire economic zone of Sebastia will be destroyed.”
Sebastian is just one part of a broader push. Since 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has invested more than 250 million shekels (about $82 million) in archaeological sites in the West Bank through a program called “Roads, Land, Heritage,” overseen by Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party. The program focuses on sites of Jewish historical significance, such as Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs and Herodium, Herod the Great’s desert fortress palace, but largely excludes Islamic and Christian heritage sites in the same region.
“Almost every stone monument and monument is packed with thousands of years of Jewish history,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in May, when the government approved new funding. “We are investing in preserving the past to protect the future.”
Prime Minister Eliyahu went further, proposing the creation of a West Bank Heritage Authority, which would transfer archeology management from the military’s Civil Affairs Bureau to his own ministry. However, Israeli officials told CNN that Netanyahu had shelved the bill due to concerns about international backlash.
Eliyahu frames the effort as preserving and rescuing neglected heritage sites that have suffered decades of Palestinian dispossession, damage, and destruction.
“I don’t want the Jewish story to be destroyed, dismantled, erased,” Eliyahu told CNN, explaining that his job was to restore the “true story” of Sebastia and other sites in the West Bank.
Eliyahu, who famously called a nuclear attack on Gaza in 2023 “an option,” rejected the premise that the land in question was Palestinian in the first place. “This area is Israeli territory. It belongs to the Jews,” he said. “Facts cannot be undone. What do you say to let our heritage be erased? The fact is that this is the land of our fathers and mothers.”
Israeli watchdog groups tell a different story.
“The government’s only interest is Jewish heritage, erasing thousands of years of human presence in the region,” said Alon Arad, director of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli organization that tracks archeology in the West Bank.
Arad argues that this policy focuses on territorial control rather than conservation. “Prime Minister Eliyahu doesn’t care about antiquities. He wants annexation. Antiquities are just an excuse, part of a deeper process that creates a correlation between heritage and sovereignty,” he told CNN. “Archaeology is used as a tool.”
He dismissed Eliyahu’s claim that Palestinians systematically ignore antiquities as a “very cynical argument” and said there was no data to support it.
The Palestinian Authority is currently lobbying to have Sebastia moved from UNESCO’s tentative list, where it has been since 2012, to the full World Heritage List, and Arad hopes UNESCO’s listing could deter further Israeli action.
“UNESCO can say whatever it wants. If they try to fabricate a story that is contrary to the truth, they will not succeed,” Eliyahu said.
The West Bank is home to thousands of archaeological sites, estimated to range from 2,600 to as many as 6,000, reflecting its long history as a crossroads of civilizations. Sebastia is a touchstone to the battle not only for the past, but also for the present and future of the territory and the people living near its historic stones.
