Although the tomb of Queen Helena of Adiabene (a kingdom located in what is now Iraq) is located in the West Bank city of Nablus (Shechem), it has been under French control since 1885. French authorities announced that, for the first time, it will be opened to visitors. Hagay Hacohen explains the site’s history:

The people of the ancient kingdom of Adiabene had converted to Judaism in the 1st century CE, while Queen Helena moved to Jerusalem to build palaces for herself and her sons, Izates bar Monobaz and Monobaz II, [who are buried there as well]. The French archaeologist Louis Félicien de Saulcy, who studied the site in 1863, thought he had found the burials grounds of the House of David.

The Jewish community, outraged by de Saulcy’s removal of human remains—which is against Jewish religious law—demanded he stop his work. The French archaeologist eventually did so, but not before he made sure the discovered sarcophagi and other findings would be shipped to Paris, where today they are preserved at the Louvre.

To prevent further damages, the site was bought by the French-Jewish Péreire family and given to the government of France on the condition it would keep the site for the benefit of the Jewish people.

There is little doubt that if Hizballah had participated more intensively in Saturday’s attack, Israeli air defenses would have been pushed past their limits, and far more damage would have been done. Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack, trying to look at things from Tehran’s perspective, see this as an important sign of caution—but caution that shouldn’t be exaggerated:

Iran is well aware of the extent and capability of Israel’s air defenses. The scale of the strike was almost certainly designed to enable at least some of the attacking munitions to penetrate those defenses and cause some degree of damage. Their inability to do so was doubtless a disappointment to Tehran, but the Iranians can probably still console themselves that the attack was frightening for the Israeli people and alarming to their government. Iran probably hopes that it was unpleasant enough to give Israeli leaders pause the next time they consider an operation like the embassy strike.

Hizballah is Iran’s ace in the hole. With more than 150,000 rockets and missiles, the Lebanese militant group could overwhelm Israeli air defenses. . . . All of this reinforces the strategic assessment that Iran is not looking to escalate with Israel and is, in fact, working very hard to avoid escalation. . . . Still, Iran has crossed a Rubicon, although it may not recognize it. Iran had never struck Israel directly from its own territory before Saturday.

Byman and Pollack see here an important lesson for America:

What Saturday’s fireworks hopefully also illustrated is the danger of U.S. disengagement from the Middle East. . . . The latest round of violence shows why it is important for the United States to take the lead on pushing back on Iran and its proxies and bolstering U.S. allies.