TEHRAN – Faced with the ongoing Israeli Air Campaign, Iran has implemented an unprecedented emergency project to protect its most precious cultural treasures.
The Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts confirmed the completion of this important mission on the evening of Friday, June 14th, and transferred the most important museum artifacts to the high security storage facility.
The urgent action was triggered by an unannounced Israeli airstrike that began on Thursday, June 13th, targeting multiple locations across Iran.
The enormous scale of Iran’s cultural landscape under the current threat underscores this need for evacuation. With around 840 museums operating nationwide, about 300 of which are directly managed by the province, the possibility of catastrophic losses is immeasurable.
Recent Israeli attacks on cities such as Isfahan, Koramabad and Karmanshah are renowned for their dense concentration of historical monuments and archaeological sites, which have led to serious vigilance among cultural heritage authorities. The continued struggles put museums, ancient sites and historical monuments in serious and immediate risks. Iranian officials explicitly cited “deep distrust in Tel Aviv’s compliance with wartime regulations” as a catalyst for emergency measures, further highlighting UNESCO’s classification of intentional assaults on cultural heritage, such as war crimes.
Evacuation focused only on artifacts designated as “high-priority protection items.” Today, these carefully selected treasures are housed in the largest security facilities, but the vast majority of museums and cultural heritage are exposed and face immediate dangers as Israeli attacks expand to encompass non-military targets across the country.
Given the pattern of deliberately destroying the Israeli military’s cultural heritage of Gaza, this practice appears to be repeated in Iran by the same army. More than 226 archaeological/historical sites in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, including the Great Omali Mosque (7th century), St. Porphyrius Church (12th century), and the ancient port of Ansidon (800 BC).
Israel’s parallel strikes against Iran are now directly threatening Persian heritage thousands of years ago, exacerbating existing environmental risks. Protecting these sites requires urgent global action. Cultural heritage is treated as an unnegotiable pillar of human dignity.
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