A BILL to establish a West Bank Heritage Authority and transfer direct responsibility to Israel for the care of antiquities, heritage, and archaeological sites in the West Bank was approved by the Education, Culture and Sports Committee of the Knesset this month. The new body’s mandate includes “sweeping powers of expropriation for both artefacts and the land they occupy, specifically for ‘protection, conservation, research, and development’,” Israel Today reports. It will be governed by a nine-member council appointed directly by the Minister of Heritage, removing archaeological oversight from the Defense Ministry. The Mayor of Sebastia, Mahmud Azem, told The Guardian this month that Sebastia had “gone into a dark tunnel. Currently, Israel controls the site under Area C, while the town itself is in Area B, under joint Israeli and Palestinian Authority control.

Source: The Times February 27, 2026 00:44 UTC