Iran’s Unesco-listed Golestan Palace damaged as US and Israel ramp up air war

The US military has said that it has hit nearly 2,000 targets inside Iran since Saturday. Nearly 800 people have been killed, including some whom US President Donald Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.While numerous government and military sites have been targeted - including the facility where Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on the first day of the operation - the intensity of the bombardment has damaged at least one UNESCO-listed site.Golestan Palace in Tehran was damaged in US and Israeli strikes, according to Iranian media reports earlier this week. The palace was where the last shah to rule Iran was crowned in 1967.“Following the joint US-Israeli attack on Arag Square in southern Tehran on Sunday evening, parts of the Golestan Palace... were damaged,” the ISNA news agency reported, adding that windows, doors, and mirrors were hit by reverberations from blasts. Iran’s Mehr news agency carried a similar report on Monday.Debris inside Golestan Palace. Photo: West Asia News Agency via ReutersThe former royal palace “was reportedly damaged by debris and the shock wave following an air strike to the Arag Square, located in the buffer zone of the site in the Iranian capital,” UNESCO said in a statement late on Monday.The UN’s cultural agency said it had “communicated to all parties concerned the geographical coordinates of sites on the World Heritage List” to avoid any potential damage, citing protections enshrined in international conventions.