The United Nations cultural body Unesco has called on warring parties in the Middle East to respect international conventions protecting cultural property after Iran’s heritage-listed Golestan Palace was damaged in US-Israeli air strikes.
The palace in Tehran was hit in an attack on Arag Square in the south of the city on Sunday evening, local media reported.
“Following the joint US-Israeli attack on Arag square in southern Tehran on Sunday evening, parts of the Golestan Palace... were damaged,” the ISNA news agency reported. It added that windows, doors and mirrors were hit by reverberations from blasts.
Iran’s Mehr news agency carried a similar report.
Unesco warning
The former royal palace “was reportedly damaged by debris and the shock wave following an air strike to the Arag Square, located in the buffer zone of the site in the Iranian capital”, Unesco said in a statement late on Monday.
The UN cultural agency said it had “communicated to all parties concerned the geographical coordinates of sites on the World Heritage List as well as those of national significance, to avoid any potential damage”.
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It also pointed to protections for cultural property set out in international conventions.
The Iranian presidential office’s information channel released video and images of the palace interior.
Afarin Emami, director of the Golestan Palace World Heritage Site, said there was significant damage to “architectural decorations, especially wooden elements, including doors, windows, and decorative moldings”.
War impact
He added that after the 12-day war, objects in the palace were collected and transferred to secure storage, and no damage was done to them.
Golestan Palace was the residence of the Qajar dynasty’s kings and was registered on the Unesco World Heritage List in July 2013.
The conflict started on Saturday when the United States and Israel launched attacks against Iran, killing supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
Iran has responded by targeting US allies in the Gulf region.
The US military said on Tuesday it had hit more than 1,250 targets in the first 48 hours of the war against Iran.
A fact sheet released by US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the region, said the targets included command-and-control centres, ballistic missile sites, Iranian navy ships and submarines, and anti-ship missile sites.
(with newswires)
