BETHLEHEM, August 7, 2026 (WAFA) – Israeli colonists on Friday stormed the Solomon’s Pools, south of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, according to security sources.

They reported that colonists, escorted by Israeli occupation forces, barged their way into the tourist site, where they gathered near the second and third pools and performed rituals.

In recent months, there has been an upsurge in Israeli encroachments upon the tourist site, including repeated closures of the site, assaulting Palestinian visitors, and denying them access to the site.

Approximately 1 million Israeli colonists are living in colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law.

Located between the town of Al-Khader and the village of Artas, Solomon’s Pools belong to an ancient water system that evolved across different historical periods and formed part of a network for collecting and transporting water that served Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

The pools are now one of the archaeological and historic sites in the occupied West Bank that have come under threat of Israeli takeover.

In late May, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a supremacist Jewish settler, toured the archaeological site alongside Israeli officials, claiming that the site's continued management by the Palestinian Authority is "unacceptable" and pledging to change the situation, according to Israeli media reports.

Israel uses the Jewish nationalist name “Judea and Samaria” to refer to the occupied West Bank to reinforce its bogus claims to the territory and to give them a veneer of historical and religious legitimacy.

K.F.