The Battle Over Solomon’s Pools Is Really A Battle Over Oslo
By Verity Quill
Palestinian children were swimming at Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem on July 10 when Isr*eli soldiers entered the site and fired tear gas.
The raid was disturbing on its own. But it followed an increasingly public campaign by senior Isr*eli ministers to take control of the ancient reservoirs, transforming a place where Palestinian families swim, picnic and escape the summer heat into the centre of a much larger political confrontation.
This is not simply a dispute over archaeology. It is a test of whether heritage policy can be used to reach inside Palestinian-administered territory and dismantle what remains of the Oslo framework.
The Pools Sit Inside Palestinian-Administered Area A
Solomon’s Pools are three ancient reservoirs located between Artas and Al-Khader, southwest of Bethlehem. Their water system was developed and altered across several eras, including Hasmonean, Roman, Byzantine, Mamluk and Ottoman rule.
Under the 1995 Oslo II Accord, the site lies inside Area A, which was placed under Palestinian civil and police control. The Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf separately says it legally owns the compound.
That distinction matters. Isr*eli forces have entered Area A many times, but formally transferring administrative control over a site inside it would establish a different precedent.
Smotrich Wants To Erase Oslo’s ‘Mistake.’ He’s Already Done It Once
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich entered Solomon’s Pools under military protection in May and declared: “This is our land.”
He described leaving the site under Palestinian control as one of the Oslo Accords’ “terrible mistakes” and said the government would change its status.
This is not an idle threat from Smotrich. In June, he personally signed off on stripping Palestinian planning and construction powers over Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque and the adjoining Tomb of the Patriarchs, scrapping a 1997 agreement that had governed the site for nearly three decades. He called it a “historic step” toward deepening “Israeli sovereignty” in the West Bank. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s office called it a violation of international law.
That is the same minister, the same legal playbook, one month before he turned his attention to Solomon’s Pools.
Alon Arad, an Isr*eli archaeologist and executive director of Emek Shaveh, says Solomon’s Pools are being “weaponised” to erode the Oslo agreement.
The Precedent Is Already Being Built, One Law At A Time
In February 2026, Isr*el’s security cabinet first approved the transfer of powers that Smotrich later formalised at Hebron in June.
Alongside it, Israel’s parliament has already passed one of three required votes on a bill establishing a “Heritage Authority in Judea and Samaria,” which would move Roman, Byzantine and Crusader-era archaeological sites under Isr*eli Heritage Ministry control and explicitly permits “expropriation and purchase of real estate” in the West Bank.
The bill has drawn an unusual objection: Isr*el’s own military has officially opposed it, and a Knesset committee legal adviser warned that if passed, it would violate Isr*el’s international commitments and reinforce what she called “creeping annexation.”
Supporters describe the policy as heritage preservation. Critics, including the Isr*eli settlement watchdog Peace Now, call it “an annexationist measure in every respect.”
Palestinian officials and critical Isr*eli archaeologists see the pattern clearly: Hebron seized in June, an annexation-adjacent heritage bill already through parliament, and Solomon’s Pools now squarely in the crosshairs.
The Isr*eli Counterargument
The pro-Isr*el media-monitoring organisation CAMERA disputes parts of the original Guardian reporting on Solomon’s Pools specifically.
It argues Smotrich does not possess unilateral legal authority to seize the pools, and says reports of an expanding settler presence exaggerate what it describes as a limited guided-tour programme.
No completed transfer or formal seizure order for Solomon’s Pools has been publicly announced. That distinction must remain clear.
But the absence of a completed takeover at this specific site does not make the threat imaginary elsewhere. The same minister has already completed an almost identical seizure at Hebron. The military raid, cabinet decisions, ministerial visits and a heritage bill already through parliament all give the campaign consequences beyond rhetoric.
Who Controls The Past Controls The Land
Solomon’s Pools contain layers of Jewish, Roman, Christian, Islamic, Ottoman and modern Palestinian history.
The danger begins when one layer is declared the only history that matters and is then used to erase the living community surrounding it.
The battle is not merely over who maintains three ancient reservoirs. It is over whether archaeology can become the political language through which Palestinian authority is dismantled, one heritage site at a time.
Hyperlinked Sources
The Guardian (via AOL): Israel Threatens To Seize Ancient Water Reservoirs Near Bethlehem
Reuters (via US News): Israel Seizes Powers Over Hebron Shrine From Palestinian Authority
Reuters (via GV Wire): Palestinians Decry Israeli Push For Control Over Ancient West Bank Sites
Mondoweiss: Palestinians Resist Israel’s Efforts To Take Over Solomon’s Pools
CAMERA: Response To The Guardian’s Solomon’s Pools Reporting
