Saudi tourism body to award museum, heritage contracts worth SR1.2 billion

Arab News

December 3, 2017

Riyadh, Dec 3: Nine museum and heritage projects will be awarded across the Kingdom at costs totaling more than SR433 million ($155 million), the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) has announced.

The SCTH said another five projects will also be awarded within the SCTH cultural heritage projects whose costs are more than SR1.4 billion.

SCTH President Prince Sultan bin Salman has patronized the signing of the contracts with a number of national companies.

The new projects included the establishment of new museums, development of existing ones, expansion of the National Museum, maintenance, fencing and posting of awareness notices in the archaeological and heritage sites in addition to other projects to rehabilitate a number of archaeological sites across the Kingdom.

The new projects come as part of King Salman’s program for cultural heritage in the Kingdom. There are now 230 projects covering heritage with its various components such as antiquities, museums, sites of Islamic history, urban heritage, and handicrafts, plus other components of the Kingdom’s heritage.

The new projects also included the design of museum exhibitions; executive plans for the rehabilitation of Al-Saqqaf Palace in Makkah region; expansion and development of the National Museum (first phase); design and preparation of the executive plans of the SCTH regional museums in Dammam, Tabuk, Baha, Hail, Jouf, Najran and Asir; museum projects in Al-Qasim, Arar, Tima and Ahsa, and the railway museum in Madinah; the rehabilitation project of Khuzam Palace and other historic and heritage buildings in Ahsa; and the rehabilitation of ten heritage buildings in Yanbu (first phase).

On the other hand, the maintenance, fencing and posting notices projects covered 300 sites across the Kingdom and the signing of operation and engineering contracts for museums and archaeological sites more than 130 locations in all parts of the Kingdom.

The projects also included the rehabilitation of the archaeological sites in Al-Jouf Region, including five sites in Skaka Province and another two in Domat-Al-Jandal Province.

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Israel killing Palestinian children in Gaza every day despite ceasefire: UNICEF

News Network

November 22,2025

The Israeli regime’s forces have killed two Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip every day since the ceasefire began in early October, UNICEF has warned.

The UN children’s agency said on Friday that Israeli forces continue to attack Palestinians in Gaza even though the agreement was meant to stop the killing.

“Since 11 October, while the ceasefire has been in effect, at least 67 children have been killed in conflict-related incidents in the Gaza Strip. Dozens more have been injured. That is an average of almost two children killed every day since the ceasefire took effect,” UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires said in Geneva, reminding that each number in the statistics represents a child whose life had ended violently.

“These are not statistics,” he said. “Each child had a story, a family, and a future that was stolen from them.”

Data from Palestinian factions, human rights groups, and government bodies recorded since the US-brokered ceasefire deal went into effect on October 10 show that Israeli forces have carried out numerous attacks, each constituting a separate ceasefire violation.

UNICEF teams say they repeatedly continue to witness heart-wrenching scenes of fearful Palestinian children sleeping outdoors with amputated limbs, while others live as orphans in flooded, makeshift shelters.

“I saw this myself in August. There is no safe place for them. The world cannot normalize their suffering,” Pires said, lamenting that the UN could “do a lot more if the aid that is really needed was entering faster.”

The UNICEF spokesperson warned that with the advent of winter, the risks for hundreds of thousands of displaced children will increase.

He warned, “The stakes are incredibly high” for children as winter acts as a threat multiplier, where children have no heating, no insulation, and few blankets. He said respiratory infections rise.

“Too many children have already paid the highest price,” Pires said. “Too many are still paying it, even under a ceasefire. The world promised them it would stop and that we would protect them.”

“Now we must act like it,” the UNICEF spokesperson added.

Since the Israeli regime launched its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza in October 2023, it has killed nearly 70,000 people in the territory, most of them women and children, and injured over 170,000 more, while reducing most of the structures in the enclave to rubble.

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