Lebanon’s Minister of Culture Mohammad Wissam Al-Murtada said on Thursday that settler and historical “researcher” Ze’ev Erlich was killed with invading Israeli troops while investigating an ancient fortress in an attempt to bolster Israeli claims to parts of southern Lebanon.
“The declared goal of [Erlich’s] entry into the shrine of Prophet Shimon in the town of Shamaa, under the guise of searching for historical evidence linked to the land of Israel, reaffirms once again the expansionist and aggressive nature of this entity,” Al-Murtada said in a statement.
“[Israel] will not be satisfied with occupying Palestine’s land, history, and heritage; it is also seeking to occupy Lebanon’s land, history, and heritage, if it finds the means to do so.
“This places us, the Lebanese, before the challenge of recognising this truth—that Israel is an evil lying in wait for us, an enemy that will not rest until it destroys our way of life,” the statement added.
Erlich has invariably been described as a historian and archaeologist since his death on Wednesday. However, he had no known professional background in either field, but was a well-known settler and researcher in the occupied West Bank who had focused his studies on the “Land of Israel”.
Originally from the Ofra settlement, which he co-founded in Binyamin in the occupied West Bank, Haaretz described Erlich as a “researcher” who authored several works on Jewish history in Israel and the region, some of which has been characterised as “pseudohistory”.
Erlich, in full military fatigues, had visited the Shamoun al-Safa shrine in the Shia-majority town of Shamaa, which neighbours a 12th-century Crusade fortress, known as Shamaa Castle, with the area having recently been overrun by Israeli forces.
On Sunday, Israel allegedly directly targeted the Shrine of Shimon, also known as the Shrine of Saint Peter due to Shimon being his original name, with parts of it being destroyed with explosives, according to several sources.
The shrine is revered by both Christians and Shia Muslims, with it said to contain the burial place of Saint Peter – the founder of the Catholic Church and the chief disciple of Jesus.
There are fears, such as those stated by Al-Mortada, that Erlich’s presence in the area was to look for ruins related to ancient Israel that would somehow give Israel a pseudohistorical “cultural” excuse to annex areas of south Lebanon.
Erlich’s presence in Lebanon was justified by the Israeli military as part of an invitation to “assess a fortress the forces planned to convert into an observation post,” according to Haaretz.
However, regardless of the reason for Erlich’s presence, Al-Murtada is quick to point out that Israel’s attack on Shamaa Castle came a day after that site was given “provisional enhanced protection” by UNESCO along with dozens of other heritage sites in Lebanon.
The move came after several Israeli strikes in recent weeks on Baalbek in the east and Tyre in the south hit close to ancient Roman ruins designated as World Heritage sites.
“The mere entry of the Zionists into this shrine, even temporarily, represents a blatant violation of the UNESCO decision, and expresses the Israeli arrogance which, with the support of its known backers, holds no regard for the international community, its organizations, charters, and laws,” Al-Murtada said.
