The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has rejected the idea of receiving responsibility for antiquities in the West Bank as proposed in a bill introduced by Likud MK Amit Halevi. As a result, Halevi has presented an amendment to the bill to establish a new body under the authority of the Heritage Ministry to fulfill this purpose.

“The aim of this law is giving the State of Israel direct responsibility over the antiquities in the West Bank and creating the entity that will take care of it practically, in light of the concerns expressed by the Antiquities Authority,” Halevi said during a meeting of the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee on Tuesday.

“I would have been happy to task the Antiquities Authority with this responsibility, but in light of their opposition, this is the solution we found,” he added.

The authority for managing archaeological sites and preserving relics in the West Bank currently resides with the archaeology unit in the Civil Administration, Israel’s governing body in the territory, which is headed by a military office.

The bill presented by Halevi aimed to alter this arrangement and bring in the civilian IAA.

However, the IAA said in a statement to the committee that the proposed law “could cause significant damage to the academic ties of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the State of Israel with international bodies and damage its professional reputation.”

The responsibility over the archaeological sites in the West Bank has been a hotly contested issue for decades.

According to the Civil Administration’s........

© The Times of Israel