Rocket fire from Hezbollah strikes near 5th-century Byzantine church remains in northern Israel

A rocket fired into Israel from Lebanon on Friday night landed near the archaeological remains of a Byzantine church originally built in the 5th century A.D. in an area near the northern city of Nahariya.

The Lebanese Shi’ite armed group, Hezbollah, which fired the rocket has claimed to only target only Israeli military bases and other “legitimate” targets. The incident, however, took place near a sensitive archaeological site that has been preserved and studied by Israeli authorities for decades.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) representatives of the municipality and the property tax authority held a meeting, the IAA spokesperson said in a statement. “An on-site assessment indicates that the mosaic was covered by debris from the modern structure in which it had been preserved, but was not damaged.”

The Byzantine church visitor center was opened to the public in 2022 after being constructed over the mosaic floor, one of the largest of its kind ever found in northern Israel. It covers an area of around 500 square meters and can be viewed by the public without damaging the ancient artwork, which makes up the mosaic floor panels. The artwork depicted in the panels includes human beings interacting with animals and different plants. The mosaic is encased in a perimeter made up of yellow medallions, probably meant to represent the sun as it moves through the sky.

Mosaics like this one have been preserved by archeologists all over Israel, usually after being accidentally discovered by crews as they dug foundations for construction projects. This particular mosaic was found in the Katznelson neighborhood of Nahariya in 1964 by workers who were doing preparatory work for the construction of a school.

The Israel Antiquities Authority sent teams to study the mosaic and these teams determined that it had been part of a church building that was burned during the Sasanian Persian invasion of the region in 614 A.D. 

Because of its proximity to the Lebanese border, Nahariya has also been the target of hundreds of rockets over the decades and there have also been terrorist attacks in or near the city, including infiltrations by terrorists who came by sea from southern Lebanon in 1974 and 1979.