The cultural heritage and tourism ministry of Iran announced Saturday that at least 56 museums and historic sites around the country have been destroyed as the Middle Eastern war entered its 15th day.
Local media said that US-Israeli strikes destroyed Tehran’s UNESCO-listed Golestan Palace early in the conflict.
The palace complex is one of the oldest in the Iranian capital and was originally the Qajar dynasty’s official residence.
According to the government, Tehran has the most damaged monuments, with 19 suffering from varied degrees of injury.
The huge Naghsh-e Jahan Square, a 17th-century architectural treasure in the center of the central Iranian city of Isfahan, has also suffered damage.
Several houses in Siraf’s historic quarter, which contains numerous century-old buildings, were damaged.
The UN’s culture organization, UNESCO, expressed alarm to AFP on Friday about hundreds of ancient sites in Iran, Israel, and Lebanon that have been damaged or threatened by the war.
