The UN's cultural agency on Friday voted 12 to three, with six abstentions, to give UNESCO World Heritage List status to the old city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

In addition to declaring the city to be in danger and of outstanding universal value, the vote noted the city was Palestinian territory.

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Israel reacted by saying the decision's wording ignored Jews' historic links to the city, and the Israeli UNESCO ambassador left the session in protest.

In a video statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the decision "delusional."

Naftali Bennett, Israel's education minister and leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, said "Jewish ties to Hebron are stronger than the disgraceful UNESCO vote."

"The Jewish connection to Hebron goes back thousands of years [and] Hebron [is] the birthplace of King David's kingdom," he added.

Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry denounced the decision on Twitter, saying the "irrelevant" UNESCO was promoting "fake history."

In a statement, Palestine's Tourism Minister Rula Maayah said UNESCO's decision, in the face of US and Israeli opposition, was a "historical development because it stressed that the Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town" and its historic mosque "historically belong to the Palestinian people." The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called it a "success" for Palestinian diplomacy.

Key site for Muslims, Jews

Hebron is an important religious site for both Jews and Muslims, and claims to be one of the oldest cities in the world, dating back more than 5,000 years. The city is home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, said to be the resting place of key biblical figures Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To Muslims, it is known as the Ibrahimi Mosque.

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It's also a key site in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Home to more than 200,000 Palestinians and a few hundred Israelis, who live in several small settlements protected by hundreds of Israeli soldiers, the area was seized by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967, a move considered illegal by the United Nations.

The UNESCO resolution had been fast-tracked as the site is considered to be under threat. The Palestinians have accused Israel of an "alarming" number of violations, including vandalism and damage to properties.

The decision will trigger immediate World Heritage Fund assistance to the endangered site, and is intended to draw the attention of the international community to its plight. The World Heritage committee is obliged to review its situation every year.

Netanyahu announced Israel would cut another $1 million in funding to the UN in order to build a "Museum of the Heritage of the Jewish People in Hebron and Kiryat Arba and Hebron" as well as other projects.

Decisions on Vienna, Great Barrier Reef

Earlier, the committee decided to add the historic center of Vienna to its endangered list, citing a nearby high-rise project that threatens to "undermine the area's value," according to UNESCO.

The project, set to break ground in 2019, includes plans for a huge hotel, luxury apartments, fitness and sports facilities, a new conference venue and a 1,000 square-meter (10,700 square-foot) indoor skating rink.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef, two-thirds of which have been threatened by coral bleaching caused by warming sea temperatures linked to climate change, was not placed on the endangered list.

Despite two straight years of coral bleaching and fears on whether Australia's long-term conservation targets can be met, the committee praised "major efforts deployed by all those involved" in the Australian preservation plan.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites Weimar: Where it all began They wanted to change society - and created a completely new, radical architecture. To this day, the modern ideas of Bauhaus School teachers and alumni remain influential. The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 in Weimar. Its first director was Walter Gropius. The school buildings in Weimar, designed by the Belgian architect Henry van de Velde, are now World Heritage Sites.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites A template for a new way of building The Haus am Horn in Weimar is also a World Heritage Site. Built in 1923, it now looks simple and unspectacular. But back then a commitment to simplicity was revolutionary: bright, modern, affordable, and built with a functional layout and innovative materials. The building is the prototype for an estate to house the relatives of Bauhaus members.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites New location in Dessau In 1925 the Bauhaus School had to move to Dessau. The new conservative government in Weimar cut the school's funding because it considered it "left-wing." Dessau marked the start of its cooperation with industry and creation of the first tubular steel cantilever chair, the Wassily chair. The school building in Dessau, designed by Walter Gropius, is now considered a key European modernist work.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites Model homes for the Bauhaus masters In Dessau three double houses were built in which the Bauhaus masters lived, including Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee. They were also bold visions for modern living: functional, with large windows that were meant to create a link between exterior and interior. In 1928 Walter Gropius resigned as Bauhaus director. He was succeeded by Hannes Mayer and in 1930 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites Berlin modernist housing estates In 1932, Mies van der Rohe moved again with the Bauhaus: in Berlin he ran it for a year as a private institution before the Bauhaus School had to close in 1933 under pressure from the Nazis. Nonetheless, between 1913 and 1934 several modernist housing estates were built in Berlin. Six of them are now World Heritage Sites, among them the Siemensstadt Estate, on which Gropius also worked.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites A first by Gropius: the Fagus factory The Bauhaus members brought elegance and light into the world of work. The Fagus factory in Lower Saxony was designed by Walter Gropius together with architect Adolf Meyer. Its cubist forms, abundance of steel and glass and bright factory rooms are typical. It's considered a forerunner of the later Bauhaus buildings in Dessau and is a World Heritage Site. Shoe lasts are still produced here.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites Rammelsberg mines in the Harz region Industrial mining architecture: the buildings of the Rammelsberg ore mines in Goslar are preeminent examples of the Bauhaus-inspired Neues Bauen (New Building) style. The architects Fritz Schupp and Martin Kremmer designed them in 1936. Ore was extracted here until 1988. The Rammelsberg complex is now a museum and visitors' mine.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites Zollverein Coal Mine in Essen Fritz Schupp and Martin Kremmer are also responsible for designing the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen. This gigantic industrial complex was built between 1927 and 1932. Now the Zollverein complex is protected by UNESCO as testimony to the heyday of heavy industry in Europe. Coal was mined here for 135 years. The mine was decommissioned in 1986.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites The Villa Tugendhat in Brno The Bauhaus architects also exported their artistic and innovative ideas abroad. In 1930 in the Czech city of Brno, the Villa Tugendhat was finished according to plans by the later Bauhaus director Mies van der Rohe. It was commissioned as a home by industrialist Fritz Tugendhat and his wife Grete. The villa is now an icon of modernist architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites The White City in Tel Aviv After Hitler took power in 1933, many Jews fled to Palestine, among them Bauhaus alumni. Affordable housing had to be created for the many new immigrants. In Tel Aviv, the White City, a collection of more than 4000 buildings, was created between 1933 and 1948, designed mainly by German Jewish architects. It, too, is a World Heritage Site.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites Le Corbusier buildings in Stuttgart Germany's newest World Heritage Sites are two homes in the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, a housing estate in the Neues Bauen style. Both houses were designed in 1927 by the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, whose 17 building projects in seven countries are on the World Heritage list. Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius also designed houses in the Weissenhof Estate.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites The Trade Union School in Bernau The ADGB Trade Union School in Bernau, near Berlin, was completed in 1930. The second Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer and his partner Hans Wittwer designed the complex. It was built by the Bauhaus construction department. The Trade Union School in Bernau has now been included on the World Heritage list as an extension of the already-listed sites in Weimar and Dessau.

Bauhaus UNESCO World Heritage Sites Dessau's Laubengang Houses These now hold "World Heritage status": the Laubengang Houses in the Törten district of Dessau. The five apartment blocks were built under the supervision of Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer. Author: Christina Deicke



cmk/ss (AP, AFP, Reuters)