US–Israel Strikes Damage Iranian Cultural Sites

Airstrikes by US and Israeli forces in March 2026 damaged multiple Iranian cultural heritage sites. The destruction reopened debate over the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, which prohibits military attacks on cultural property, and marked one of the starkest superpower-level violations of heritage protection norms in the modern era — occurring simultaneously with the US withdrawal from UNESCO, the international body nominally responsible for enforcing such protections.