Mount Sinai's Sacred Legacy at Risk Amid Mega-Resort Development

For years, visitors would venture up Mount Sinai with a Bedouin guide to watch the sunrise over the pristine, rocky landscape or go on other Bedouin-led hikes.

Now one of Egypt's most sacred places - revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims - is at the heart of an unholy row over plans to turn it into a new tourism mega-project.

Known locally as Jabal Musa, Mount Sinai is where Moses is said to have been given the Ten Commandments. Many also believe that this is the place where, according to the Bible and the Quran, God spoke to the prophet from the burning bush.

The 6th-century St Catherine's Monastery, run by the Greek Orthodox Church, is also there - and seemingly its monks will stay on now that Egyptian authorities, under Greek pressure, have denied wanting to close it.

However, there is still deep concern about how the long-isolated, desert location - a UNESCO World Heritage site comprising the monastery, town, and mountain - is being transformed. Luxury hotels, villas, and shopping bazaars are under construction there.

It is also home to a traditional Bedouin community, the Jebeleya tribe. Already the tribe, known as the Guardians of St Catherine, have had their homes and tourist eco-camps demolished with little or no compensation. They have even been forced to take bodies out of their graves in the local cemetery to make way for a new car park.

The project may have been presented as desperately needed sustainable development which will boost tourism, but it has also been imposed on the Bedouin against their will, says Ben Hoffler, a British travel writer who has worked closely with Sinai tribes.

This is not development as the Jebeleya see it or asked for it, but how it looks when imposed top-down to serve the interests of outsiders over those of the local community, he told the BBC.

So far, Greece is the foreign power which has been most vocal about the Egyptian plans, due to its connection to the monastery. Tensions between Athens and Cairo flared up after an Egyptian court ruled that St Catherine's Monastery lies on state land. After a decades-long dispute, the judges said that the monastery was only entitled to use the land it sits on and the archaeological religious sites which dot its surroundings.

Campaigners have approached King Charles as patron of the St Catherine Foundation, which raises funds to help conserve and study the monastery's heritage with its collection of valuable ancient Christian manuscripts. The King has described the site as a great spiritual treasure that should be maintained for future generations.

The government sees its series of grandiose schemes as key to reinvigorating the flagging economy. Despite Egypt's grand plans, local communities fear their heritage and livelihood may fade into oblivion.