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Nestled in the Sinai mountains, the ancient St Catherine’s Monastery has been the centre of recent tensions after an Egyptian court ruled last week that it sat on state-owned land.Dating back to the sixth century BC, the UNESCO World Heritage Site is the world’s oldest continuously inhabited monastery, attracting hundreds of pilgrims and tourists every year.Following warnings from the authorities and Orthodox Church in Greece that the ruling threatens the monastery’s status, a government delegation is travelling from Athens to Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the situation.- World’s oldest monastery -The monastery was founded by Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the sixth century at the biblical site of the burning bush at the foot of Mount Sinai, where Moses was believed to have received the 10 commandments, according to the world’s three major monotheistic religions.It was named for Saint Catherine of Alexandria, whose remains are housed in the church, along with rare iconography and manuscripts.It is headed by the Archbishop of Mount Sinai and Raithu, under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.According to UNESCO, “the entire area is of immense spiritual significance” to Christianity, Islam and Judaism.The organisation says the monastery is “the property of the Greek Orthodox Church and belongs to the Archdiocese of Sinai”.- Ownership dispute -Last Wednesday, an Egyptian appeals court ruled that the monastery “is entitled to use” the land and the archaeological religious sites dotting the area, all of which “the state owns as public property”.The ruling, only a brief of which has been published by Egyptian media, has drawn criticism from the Orthodox patriarchates in Athens, Jerusalem and Istanbul.Archbishop Ieronymos, head of the Greek Orthodox church in Athens, warned the monastery’s property could now be “seized and confiscated”.Egypt has defended the court ruling, saying it “consolidates” the site’s sacred status.President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Egypt was “fully committed to preserving the unique and sacred religious status of Saint Catherine’s monastery”, in a phone call with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.Mitsotakis meanwhile emphasised the importance of “preserving the pilgrimage and Greek Orthodox character of the monastery”.The delegation from Athens is expected to lay out its position on Wednesday.According to Greece’s state news agency, that position “is supported by a UNESCO document, which proves that Egypt had acknowledged in writing since 2002 that the ownership of the land and buildings belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church and the Archdiocese of Sinai”.- Megaproject -Construction began in March 2021 in the Saint Catherine area, which includes the eponymous town and a nature reserve, for a government megaproject known as the ‘Great Transfiguration’ of Saint Catherine.The project aims to bring upwards of a million tourists a year to the serene mountain village.Its many construction projects include an events hall, hundreds of hotel rooms and a new residential area housing hundreds of units.Observers say the project has harmed the reserve’s ecosystem and threatened both the monastery and the local community.According to a report by World Heritage Watch, the project has “destroyed the integrity of this historical and biblical landscape”.UNESCO in 2023 requested that Egypt “halt the implementation of any further development projects”, conduct an impact evaluation and develop a conservation plan.The government, which is campaigning for former tourism and antiquities minister Khaled al-Enany to head UNESCO from October, said in January that 90 percent of the project was complete.- Visitors -The peaks and valleys around Saint Catherine attract large groups of hikers, peaking at 2,000 visitors to Mount Sinai in a single day last December, local authorities reported.The area, 1.5 kilometres (one mile) above sea level, is particularly popular with both Egyptians and foreign tourists seeking a reprieve from overcrowded Red Sea resorts elsewhere in Sinai.- Bedouin tribe – The area is home to the Jabaliya tribe, whose name derives from the Arabic word for “mountain”.Said to be the descendants of the Roman soldiers who came to guard the monastery in its early days, they maintain a close connection to Saint Catherine, with many working as tour guides today.For decades, they have been calling for better infrastructure, including reliable water supply, emergency services and telecommunications coverage to improve their work and daily life.According to World Heritage Watch, they are currently outnumbered by the thousands of labourers building the megaproject.

Aid centres in hunger-wracked Gaza will temporarily close on Wednesday, a controversial US-backed agency said, with the Israeli army warning roads leading to distribution stations “are considered combat zones”. Twenty-seven people were killed in southern Gaza on Tuesday when Israeli troops opened fire near one of the centres operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).Israel recently eased its blockade of the Palestinian enclave, but the UN has said the entire population remains at risk of famine.The UN Security Council will vote Wednesday on a resolution calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian access to Gaza, a measure expected to be vetoed by the United States.The GHF said its “distribution centres will be closed for renovation, reorganisation and efficiency improvement work” on Wednesday and would resume operations on Thursday.The Israeli army, which confirmed the temporary closure, warned against travelling “on roads leading to the distribution centres, which are considered combat zones”.The GHF, officially a private effort with opaque funding, began operations a week ago but the UN and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with it over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.Following Tuesday’s deadly incident near one of GHF’s centres, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres decried the killing of Palestinians seeking food aid as “unacceptable”.Israeli authorities and the GHF — which uses contracted US security — have denied allegations that the Israeli army shot at civilians rushing to pick up aid packages at GHF sites. The Israeli army has said the incident is under investigation. – ‘A trap’ – At a hospital in southern Gaza, the family of Reem al-Akhras, who was killed in the shooting at Rafah’s Al-Alam roundabout near GHF’s facility, were beside themselves with grief.”She went to bring us some food, and this is what happened to her,” her son Zain Zidan said, his face streaked with tears.Akhras’s husband, Mohamed Zidan, said “every day unarmed people” were being killed.”This is not humanitarian aid — it’s a trap.”The Israeli military maintains that its forces do not prevent Gazans from collecting aid.Army spokesperson Effie Defrin said the Israeli soldiers had fired towards suspects who “were approaching in a way that endangered” the troops, adding that the “incident is being investigated”.UN human rights chief Volker Turk called such attacks against civilians “unconscionable” and said they “constitute a grave breach of international law and a war crime”.The International Committee of the Red Cross meanwhile said “Gazans face an “unprecedented scale and frequency of recent mass casualty incidents”.- Relief boat – The United States said Tuesday that a US-backed relief effort in Gaza was succeeding in distributing meals but acknowledged the potential for improvement after the reports of shootings near the GHF centre.A boat organised by an international activist coalition was meanwhile sailing toward Gaza, aiming to deliver aid.The boat from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition departed Sicily Sunday carrying a dozen people, including environmental activist Greta Thunberg, along with fruit juices, milk, tinned food and protein bars.”Together, we can open a people’s sea corridor to Gaza,” the coalition said.But Israel’s military said Tuesday it was ready to “protect” the country’s maritime space.When asked about the Freedom Flotilla vessel, army spokesman Defrin said “for this case as well, we are prepared”, declining to go into detail.Israel has stepped up its offensive in what it says is a renewed push to defeat the Palestinian group Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 4,240 people have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,510, mostly civilians.Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Apart from the aid centre incident, the civil defence agency reported 19 killed on Tuesday.The army said three of its soldiers had been killed in northern Gaza, bringing the number of Israeli troops killed in the territory since the start of the war to 424.