In one case this summer, water from a natural spring to the Palestinian village of Fasayil was illegally diverted to an ancient pool nearby. Whoever siphoned the water used it to fill up that pool, declaring it a new tourist attraction named after Herod, the Roman-appointed king of Judea.

Agreements reached in the 1990s indicate the pool is located in Area C, meaning it is under full Israeli military control. Research by Dror Etkes, who runs the settlement watchdog group Kerem Navot, determined the land was privately owned.

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Israel has occupied the West Bank since it captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 war. Since then, it has built a network of settlements for more than half a million Israelis on land Palestinians seek for a future independent state.

The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements illegal. Earlier this month, during a rise in settler violence and other actions that have displaced Palestinians, the British government accused Israel of turning “a blind eye” to what it described as “ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank — perpetrated by settler terrorists.”

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The decision by settlers to name the pool near Fasayil after Herod was an attempt to “brand” the site as part of Jewish history, said Alon Arad, executive director of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli group that opposes the politicization of archaeology in Israel and the Palestinian territories.