Israel is threatening to seize a group of ancient water reservoirs near Bethlehem, marking a major escalation in its expanding campaign to control both West Bank land and the historical narrative of the Middle East.
Since far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued an explicit threat last May to “erase” the agreements that confirmed Palestinian ownership of Solomon’s Pools more than 30 years ago, Israeli settlers and soldiers have intensified their presence around the picturesque site.
An Ancient Water System Near Bethlehem
The pools date back to the second century BC, although the Romans constructed the main complex a century later as part of a vast engineering project that included two reservoirs, channels and tunnels designed to supply Jerusalem, located eight miles, or 13 kilometres, away.
A massive third pool was added during Ottoman rule, along with a fortress built to protect the water supply. During the British Mandate, from 1923 to 1948, the authorities modernised the system with metal pipes and pumps.
The stone pumping station from the Mandate era now stands abandoned in the forested hills. The pools, which exceed ten metres in depth in some places, no longer carry water to Jerusalem. Instead, they have become the area’s main recreational destination.
On a recent afternoon, children from the neighbouring villages of Artas and Al-Khader ran towards the stone walls of the middle pool and jumped into its deep green water, while several men fished among the reeds on the opposite side.
On Fridays and public holidays, families travel from Bethlehem, two miles, or 3.5 kilometres, to the north-east, to spend their evenings swimming and picnicking. As the city becomes increasingly surrounded by new Israeli settlements, the pools have become an ever more important refuge for Bethlehem’s residents.
“It is now the only place in all of Bethlehem where you can sit and enjoy the water, shade and greenery, and now they are trying to steal it,” said Mahmoud Jaber, a local activist and gardener from Artas who uses nearby spring water to grow vegetables.
Smotrich Declares: “This Is Our Land”
Although a neighbourhood belonging to the Efrat settlement overlooks the pools, the site did not face a direct threat until last May, when Smotrich and another far-right Israeli politician, Zvi Sukkot, ordered police to expel Palestinians from the area so they could be filmed swimming in the middle pool.
“This is our land,” Smotrich declared, while Sukkot repeated his call for Israel to seize the site.
Since then, settler incursions have become more frequent. On 10 July, Israeli soldiers carried out an unprecedented raid, firing tear gas while children were swimming in the pools.
The pressure campaign has triggered widespread anger across Palestine, not only because of the archaeological importance of the three rectangular reservoirs, whose combined capacity of 250,000 cubic metres makes them one of the largest surviving water systems from the ancient world, but also because the move represents another direct assault on the Palestinian Authority.
A Direct Challenge to the Oslo Accords
Under the 1995 Oslo II Accord, Solomon’s Pools became part of the wider Bethlehem area classified as Area A, which is under Palestinian civil and police control.
The division of the West Bank into Area A, Area B, which is under Palestinian civil control and Israeli military control, and Area C, which is under full Israeli administration, was intended to serve as a transitional stage towards Israel’s eventual withdrawal from the occupied territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition have long rejected that objective. They have accelerated the spread of Israeli settlements across the West Bank in an effort to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Throughout this years-long campaign, Area A was largely regarded as a red line that Israel would not openly cross.
That changed in February this year, when the Israeli security cabinet issued a decree asserting Israeli control over the historic site of Rachel’s Tomb inside Bethlehem.
The seizure of Solomon’s Pools would establish another precedent, suggesting that parts of Area A could be confiscated at will through ministerial decisions made according to political convenience.
During his visit to the pools in May, Smotrich said leaving such a “magnificent ancient water site” under Palestinian control had been “one of the grave mistakes” of the Oslo Accords.
“We are working hard to repair the serious damage caused by the disaster of the Oslo Accords,” he added.
“This site is being weaponised to erode and essentially cancel the Oslo agreement,” said Alon Arad, an Israeli archaeologist and executive director of Emek Shaveh, an organisation dedicated to protecting archaeological sites.
“There are 6,000 archaeological sites in the West Bank, and only a very small proportion of them are connected to Jewish heritage.”
Preparing the Ground for Seizure
It remains unclear whether or when the Israeli coalition will attempt to seize Solomon’s Pools. However, archaeologists and local Palestinians are preparing for further incursions as Israel’s October elections approach.
At the same time, hardline Israeli propaganda outlets have begun constructing justifications for taking control of the site, claiming that the Palestinian Authority has allowed the pools to deteriorate.
The site is crumbling in some areas, and empty water bottles and other rubbish can be seen in one corner of the middle pool.
The Palestinian Authority’s Waqf department, the religious body that owns the site, had hoped to develop it as a tourist destination.
Those ambitions collapsed after Smotrich withheld tax and customs revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority, depriving it of the necessary funding.
Competing Claims Over the Site’s History
Another argument used to justify an Israeli takeover is that Solomon’s Pools are inherently Jewish sites.
In an article published earlier this month by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, Israeli reserve lieutenant colonel Maurice Hirsch claimed that the site, “through its very name, carries Jewish historical significance and value”.
However, the name “Solomon’s Pools” is historically inaccurate.
King Solomon, if he existed, which remains disputed, is believed to have ruled Israel and Judah around 800 years before work on the reservoirs began.
The first two pools were constructed during the reign of another Jewish king, Herod the Great, a Roman-backed ruler. Yet, like many archaeological sites across Palestine and Israel, Solomon’s Pools contain overlapping traces of successive eras and empires.
Local Palestinians preserved the name over the centuries, but Iman Titi, head of Bethlehem’s Tourism and Antiquities Department, said it later came to refer to the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who restored Jerusalem’s walls and water supply during the sixteenth century.
“Archaeological sites should never become tools of political conflict,” Titi said.
“This issue goes beyond control of the land itself. It includes attempts to reshape history and promote a single historical narrative that does not reflect the archaeological evidence or the many civilisations that contributed to Palestine’s rich cultural heritage over thousands of years.”
