Israel Launches Development of Contested West Bank Reservoir on Palestinian Land

Israel has begun work on a development and preservation project around an ancient water reservoir in the occupied West Bank, a site now promoted by settlers and right-wing politicians as "Herod's Pool." The announcement, made on Sunday by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, marks the latest step in a broader effort to formalize Israeli control over a spring and reservoir that Palestinians say was filled after settlers illegally diverted water away from their village over the summer.

The reservoir is located in Fasayil, a Palestinian village near Jericho in the Jordan Valley. According to the source article, the pool sits on privately owned Palestinian land belonging to farmer Saad Nemer and his family, and its water has been redirected from a natural spring that has long served local agriculture. Rather than returning the water to Fasayil, Israeli authorities are moving ahead with plans to develop the site as a heritage and recreation area.

Smotrich, a far-right settler who holds the finance portfolio, announced that "development and preservation" of the site had commenced. In a social media post accompanied by an image of workers and wheelbarrows near the reservoir, he declared, "The Settlement Revolution continues!" He also framed the project as part of a larger initiative to strengthen Israel's hold on and preserve historical sites across the occupied territory.

The move follows a pledge Smotrich made in June of more than three million shekels, nearly one million dollars, to develop the site. That funding commitment came despite the fact that the pool is situated on privately owned Palestinian land, a detail that has drawn criticism from rights advocates and raises questions about the legal basis for the project under international law governing occupied territories.

The name "Herod's Pool" refers to Herod the Great, the Jewish king who ruled in the first century BC. Settlers have attached the name to the ancient reservoir, but archaeologists have not established when the pool was actually built, and no proven link to Herod exists. The source cites Alon Arad, executive director of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli NGO that defends cultural heritage rights and monitors the political use of archaeology, who told Reuters that the pool's origins are unclear.

Arad also warned about the broader political function of such claims, saying that in many cases archaeology is used "to create this feeling that the West Bank is exclusively Jewish." His comments point to a recurring pattern in which historical narratives are deployed to justify Israeli expansion and to obscure the Palestinian communities that live on and work the land. The Herod's Pool project, in this reading, is less about preserving antiquity than about asserting sovereignty.

The water dispute at the center of the controversy dates to the summer, when settlers redirected water from the spring to fill the reservoir so they could swim in it. According to the source, Nemer said settlers stole his irrigation pipeline for this purpose, and that over time the theft left his farmland scorched and his greenhouses empty. He also reported being threatened by settlers and said one of his employees was beaten, underscoring the climate of intimidation that often accompanies land and water seizures in the area.

Israel's military body that administers the occupied West Bank, COGAT, has acknowledged that water was diverted "without authorization" and said it would investigate. Yet the development project proceeds even as Smotrich and other Israeli politicians celebrate the pool, creating a stark contradiction between the stated intent to investigate and the visible effort to entrench the site's new use. Nemer told The New York Times that COGAT informed him his water would be restored, but it returned for only one day before being cut off again.

Nemer now fears approaching the reservoir to reconnect his pipeline because of the risk of settler violence. His family's ownership claim is supported by Israeli-issued documentation and older title records reviewed by Reuters, which found that his grandfather purchased the property more than a century ago. That documentary trail makes the Israeli project all the more contentious, as it involves developing land whose private Palestinian ownership appears well established.

The illegal diversion of water to the pool is described in the source as part of Israel's broader monopolization of water resources in the occupied West Bank's fertile Jordan Valley. Palestinians say the targeting of their water sources is part of a comprehensive plan to seize the resources of the occupied West Bank and force them off their land. Control over springs and irrigation infrastructure has long been a flashpoint in the valley, where agriculture sustains many Palestinian families.

The Herod's Pool project also fits into a wider pattern of Israeli seizures of Palestinian land carried out in the name of archaeological heritage. Israeli politicians and settlers have similarly sought greater control over "Solomon's Pools," three ancient reservoirs in the Bethlehem governorate that Palestinians have used for generations. These campaigns typically invoke Jewish historical ties while sidelining the present-day Palestinian residents who depend on the same sites.

The naming of the reservoir is itself significant. Israeli heritage projects across the occupied West Bank frequently invoke figures such as Herod, and Israel refers to the territory as "Judea and Samaria" in an attempt to separate it from its Palestinian population. This linguistic and symbolic framing is central to the political use of archaeology, as it recasts occupied land as an exclusively Jewish patrimony and relegates Palestinian presence to the margins.

For Fasayil's residents, the consequences are tangible. A spring that once irrigated crops and supported livelihoods has been redirected to fill a pool used by settlers, leaving farmland dry and greenhouses idle. The promise of restored water has so far proven fleeting, and the launch of a formal development project signals that the diversion may become permanent rather than reversed. The village's loss is not merely economic but also a matter of survival in a region where water access determines whether families can remain on their land.

The development also raises questions about the role of Israeli state institutions in enabling settler actions. COGAT's acknowledgment that the diversion was unauthorized suggests awareness of the violation, yet the finance ministry is now funding the site's development. The gap between enforcement rhetoric and on-the-ground reality illustrates how settlement expansion often proceeds through a combination of private violence and official facilitation, with legal accountability rarely following.

As work begins on Herod's Pool, the project stands as a test case for the intersection of archaeology, water rights, and occupation. It reflects a strategy in which historical claims are used to legitimize the transfer of resources and territory, while Palestinian ownership documented in Israeli records is disregarded. For Nemer and his family, the pool is not a heritage site but the visible symbol of a dispossession that continues to unfold, one diverted spring and one development project at a time.