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World Renowned Heritage Experts Discuss with Hebron Mayor the Inscription of Hebron on the WHL

Hebron Mayor Khaled Osaily met on 2/10/2010 at his office with Professor Jad Thabet, an internationally renowned heritage expert of Lebanese origin who was accompanied by several international humanitarian and cultural heritage experts. This visit aims at boosting Hebron’s nomination for Unesco’s World Heritage List (WHL). The meeting was attended by Hebron Municipality Engineer Tawfiq Arafa and by Project Coordinator Engineer Ala’a Shahin.

At the outset of the meeting, Osaily welcomed the delegation and thanked it for this visit which aims at supporting Hebron’s nomination, boosting its technical nomination file as well as providing advice to enrich the file and to follow up on technical and professional matters related to it. He valued the role played by Belfort Municipality (France), which he described as Hebron’s genuine partner in the project, which facilitated the delegation’s visit to Hebron. “The project for the inscription of Hebron’s Old City on the WHL is one of our top priorities. We aim at mobilizing international support in order to lobby Unesco to accept our file which we have prepared in cooperation with a number of partners and according to the highest professional standards. Your presence among us today further enriches our work and provides us with additional support from world renowned experts in this field”, he added.

Osaily called on the delegation to examine the contents of the file and to get better acquainted with the Old City and its buildings which leave no doubt that the area deserves a place on the WHL given its rich history spanning over different eras and its cultural heritage representing various peoples and civilizations which have passed through the city and marked its unique architecture, buildings, alleys and quarters.

“I am optimistic and I believe that this endeavor, i.e. inscribing the Old City and other Palestinian cities, with their rich history and unique holy places, is possible. Palestinian cities deserve a place on that List, and I hope that UN agencies, who work to put an end to oppression, would not penalize us by rejecting our file under the pretext that we are under occupation. By doing so, we would actually suffer twice: once because we are under occupation and once more because we cannot inscribe our sites on that List since we are not independent”, he added.

Speaking in the same vein, Professor Thabet said: “From what I and my colleagues have seen, and from what we have read in the nomination file, we believe that there is a huge chance for the file to be technically accepted. All contents indicate clearly that Hebron’s Old City deserves to be on that List. My colleagues and I shall do our utmost possible to help Palestinian teams complete the file and shall provide them with the necessary skills and know-how to this end. We plan to stay in Hebron for some time until our work is done, i.e. making Hebron Municipality’s dream to inscribe the Old City on the WHL come true”, he added.

It is to be noted that Professor Thabet is a previous member of the World Heritage Committee and is an international prominent expert in the field of world heritage.

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