In June we published reports of damage to the ancient city of Nablus; these reports were challenged by a prominent Israeli as being Palestinian propaganda. Last month, Robert Bevan went into Nablus and reports here the devastation that he saw.

NABLUS. Holy sites in the Holy Land arouse passions. The current Intifada was ignited by the prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon's stroll within the walls of an enclosure that surrounds the mosques on Haram al-Sharif (as it is known to the Palestinians; Temple Mount to the Jews), which was seen as an attempt to assert ownership.

Since then, however, both sides in the conflict, Palestinian and Israeli, have avoided targeting each other's religious buildings.

There have been rare attacks, such as the Palestinian destruction of Joseph's Tomb (which Yassar Arafat ordered rebuilt) and an attack by Israeli Jews on a mosque in Tiberius, northern Israel, but, until this Spring, these have been isolated.

However, Israeli incursions into West Bank towns have begun to unravel that unspoken agreement. The destruction of large parts of Jenin and the siege of Bethlehem saw the demolition of numerous Palestinian buildings.

The Israeli army says that the aim was the pursuit of suicide bombers but along the way the infrastructure of these West Bank towns was wrecked, from Arafat's own compound in Ramallah to schools, radio stations and cultural centres.

It is the fate of the historic city of Nablus, however, that has provoked an outcry. Dating back to at least 71BC, the beguiling old town incorporates stone structures from Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, Mamluk, and Ottoman times.

On 3 April dozens of tanks, and armoured bulldozers invaded and occupied the town. They are still there and Nablus remains under almost continuous curfew with its inhabitants confined indoors for over 100 days and nights, apart from the very occasional days when the restrictions are lifted for a few hours.

Shortly after the incursion a preliminary assessment report on the damage to Nablus's architectural heritage was prepared by a team which included the municipality, the local UN office and local conservationists. This report, which remains online at www.nablus.org, says that among the buildings that were damaged or destroyed were three of its 30 plus mosques, dozens of historic Ottoman houses, an Ottoman hammam (steam bath), centuries-old soap factories (a traditional local industry) and the Greek Orthodox Church in the centre.

Although the report was not an official UN document as suggested in the June issue of The Art Newspaper, at its annual meeting in June the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations's cultural branch, Unesco, condemned the damage to the Palestinian Heritage.

In a statement, Unesco officials said: "[We] deplore the destruction and damage caused to the cultural heritage of Palestine" and emphasised the "exceptional universal value" of this heritage.

Under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and additional Protocols of the Geneva Convention, the deliberate targeting, or reckless damage to historic buildings is considered a war crime.

In June, The Art Newspaper (No. 126, p. 3) published an article [click here]about the damage to Nablus and Unesco's condemnation, citing the above report and information from the Paris-based organisation, Patrimoine sans frontières.

We wrote: "The al-Khadrah mosque has been 80% destroyed; the al-Satoun and al Kabir mosques, converted Byzantine churches, were 20% destroyed; 60 historic houses were demolished (and 200 partially demolished); the 18th-century eastern entrance to the old market has been destroyed; seven Roman cisterns and at least 80% of the paved streets have been ruined."

The article provoked strong rebukes particularly from Jews in the US. In a letter to the editor published in the October issue of The Art Newspaper (No. 129, p. 4), Martin Weyl, former director of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, said that there had been no deliberate destruction of cultural property by the Israeli army in Nablus or other West Bank towns.

Reports of "the non-existent damage" he suggested were based on "misinformation" fed by the "strong anti-Israel bias in the UN's various agencies which are largely controlled by a pro-Arab lobby."

"Regarding the al-Khadrah Mosque," said Dr Weyl, "It was originally an ancient Byzantine church dating from 1187 and was turned into a mosque, and according to the mayor, the mosque had been completely repaired by June. It seems highly questionable," he added, "that a building that was destroyed 80% and which is an historical building could have been repaired in less than two months."

He also challenged the reports of damage to other buildings: "Except for the Roman cisterns, your numbers pertaining to the extent of destruction are total fabrications. And the cisterns were used as ammunition depots and booby trapped so the Israeli Army had no choice but to blow them up."

Dr Weyl had previously threatened a campaign against the "slandering, vicious, and inaccurate articles" of The Art Newspaper among his museum colleagues, art and antique dealers and collectors, the Jewish press and the Anti- Defamation League. After he was shown the text of the present article, he wrote: "Every armed conflict can cause a lot of destruction. Most of these structures were in the centre of Nablus where terrorists refused to surrender, using inhabitants and old houses as shields. A few buildings, including mosques, were damaged, and in nearly all cases they could easily be repaired. This is a far cry from your headline that `Many Palestinian monuments were destroyed by Israel troops'. Israel does not have any intentions to damage mosques or churches. On the contrary, it is Israel's policy to protect cultural and religious sites."

On 11 October I entered Nablus. I visited the sites that were reported as damaged or destroyed by The Art Newspaper.

Both The Art Newspaper and Martin Weyl were incorrect in their assessment of the damage to the al-Khadrah mosque. It is a modern addition to the mosque that suffered most damage and was almost entirely flattened. However, its historic prayer hall had its front torn off by an Israeli armoured bulldozer. The saucer-domed roof of the mosque was smashed inwards to the boss of the first vault (see the November issue of The Art Newspaper for full illustrations, the building hugs a hillside with the street above almost at roof height). It was this element, at least 1,000 years old (not built in 1187 but converted from a church then) that was quickly rebuilt. The new stone courses and mortar correspond precisely with photographs of the damage taken in mid April this year.

Two other historic mosques, which are some 1,600 years old (again converted early Christian churches) were also hit by heavy weaponry. Damage to the al-Satoun mosque was less extensive than the 20% reported by The Art Newspaper, but at the al-Kabir mosque in the heart of the souk, a whole building of the historic complex was smashed in (see illustrations), even though the main building escaped damage.

A great deal of the damage to the public buildings has been repaired by the Palestinians but much remains, especially to the centuries old pattern of courtyard houses.

These honeyed stone "hosh" are home to extended families and are the physical cement of the old city. Many dozens have been flattened; many more have had chunks taken out of them. The breaking of stone bracing arches which spanned the alleys of the old town threatens further collapse. One Ottoman gateway to the souk was, indeed, levelled.

Only within the ancient souk is there any semblance of life; a few of its 20,000 inhabitants out in the narrow, winding alleys, buying vegetables from the makeshift stalls, sitting smoking in doorways, kicking a football around in a desultory way.

It is the souk's very inaccessibility to heavy armour that is its protection, and it is why the Israeli army attempted to blast its way in with tanks, bulldozers, Apache attack helicopters and F- 16 jets. Throughout the centre, stonework has been gouged, pocked and reduced to rubble.

The most concentrated area of destruction turned six important hosh buildings, two 250-year-old Ottoman soap factories, and a caravanserai (nomadic merchant's inn) into rubble.

This area, in the very heart of the souk, was bombed by an F-16 jet. Only vestigial stone vaults remain around the edge of the crater (see illustrations). The blast also wrecked the now rebuilt street frontage of a Greek Orthodox Church.

It is a huge rent in the historic fabric of the city. As with the hammam, the Israeli forces have said that the factory buildings were being used by militants. They cleared out hundreds of local residents into nearby schools before bombing the area.

The Israeli claims do not explain why two months later the army returned to flatten the rubble of the caravanserai. It had been earmarked for a ?3.5million restoration project funded by the EU.

Eight people were killed on 9 April when the al Shu'bi hosh on the southern edge of the town was bulldozed to drive a path into the souk. Two more were pulled alive from the rubble a week later when the curfew was temporarily lifted-as was shown on Israeli television.

Further up the street two teacher sisters, Zoha and Soha Fretekh, were killed, according to Nablus radio reporter Ala Badarneh, when their historic family hosh and the adjacent Okasha family hosh was blasted by an Apache helicopter.

The oldest surviving operational hammam in the country near al Kabir on An Nasir street (probably built around 1480) also survives despite shells having smashed through its central dome and shattered its multi-coloured lantern.

The Israeli army claims the hammam was being used to shelter Palestinian fighters. Its owner, Nablus Fire Chief Yosef Jabi, says it was being used as a telephone relay station for the nearby mosque which was serving as a hospital for the wounded. Either way, he says, it does not justify firing rockets at a 15th-century building.

Dr Weyl's claims that a set of Roman cisterns was used as ammunition dumps and booby-trapped thereby forcing its destruction is harder to substantiate.

There are a number of Roman remains in the city but nobody I spoke to was clear about which cisterns the municipality or Dr Weyl are referring to.

Naseer Arafat, an architectural conservationist, says that the structures were within the Al-Qasba museum which was hit by a shell on its eastern corner that penetrated the building.

On my visit the museum was closed and largely intact but the key proved elusive. If the cisterns are here, their state is unclear. They are certainly not blown-up ammunition dumps; the girls' school on the upper floors above the museum would not still be there and operating if they had been.

The initial reports from Nablus that were referred to in The Art Newspaper did contain inaccuracies but the devastation of the historic core of the town has, if anything, been more extensive than claimed in the June issue of The Art Newspaper. The "non- existent" damage is there to be seen by anyone who is able and willing to enter Nablus.

Downtown Nablus remains a ghost town under curfew. The streets are empty except for dust, rubble and uprooted palm trees until a gaggle of Palestinian children appear around a street corner, throwing stones at an Israeli tank which replies with raking machine gun fire.

Most days, the muezzin's call to prayer has to go unanswered. Schools are empty, cafés are shuttered and commercial life is all but dead. It is virtually impossible for any Arab resident to leave or enter the town by the Israeli army checkpoints.

There is absolutely no doubt that the historic buildings of Nablus have been targeted and destroyed by the Israeli Defence Force since April. Whether they have been targeted as heritage per se, is a moot point.

The Hague Convention is a complicated document, but there is no doubt that it is contrary to international law to destroy architectural monuments in this fashion.

How much deliberate damage do you have to do to buildings of such rarity before you regard it as contrary to international conventions to which Israel is a signatory?

Whether or not Palestinian heritage has been attacked because of the Palestinian history it represents, there has been a total disregard for this heritage. It is deemed expendable by the Israeli forces. It is no wonder that the Palestinians are suspicious.

Hundreds of Arab villages across Israel were destroyed in the wake of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. In their determination to create irreversible "facts on the ground", new, exclusively Jewish settlements have been built on seized Arab land (contrary to UN resolutions) and Palestinian towns put in a strangle-hold.

The built environment and archaeological remains have become highly politicised as both sides argue the merits of their historic claims to the land.

In the wake of the Israeli destruction in Nablus, the sacred Jewish site of Joseph's Tomb on the edge of the town was again destroyed by local Islamic militants. It is vital for the world's collective heritage that damage caused to the architecture of Nablus, Christian, Jewish and Muslim, does not descend into the ugly cultural cleansing that was such a feature of the Bosnian war.

Robert Bevan is the editor of Building Design and author of the forthcoming book The destruction of memory: architecture in conflict.

With thanks to Teresa Smith and Orly Halpern for making a visit to Nablus possible.

Source: The Art Newspaper