Occupied West Bank – Rows of Israeli flags mark the entrance to the Ahava Visitor Center a few hundred metres from the northwestern banks of the Dead Sea. 

Inside, the cosmetics manufacturer sells “With Love from Israel” skincare gift sets to the American, Russian and Korean tourist groups that arrive in buses every 10 minutes or so.

For the unsuspecting visitor, it is not easy to tell that one is no longer within the internationally recognised borders of Israel, but in the occupied West Bank, in an Israeli settlement, illegal under international law.

The same goes for nearby Qumran, a popular tourist attraction where a Bedouin shepherd once found the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.

Notwithstanding it being situated in the West Bank, Israel now controls the site, which also has an entry marked by rows of Israeli flags and a sizeable gift shop filled with “I love Israel” souvenirs.

“I believe we are in Israel,” said Jimmy Small, a tourist from New York, when asked about his current location. 

Most other tourists at a tour bus car park in Qumran gave the same response.

The confusion is not that surprising given the major travel companies’ brochures and websites.

An investigation by Al Jazeera of travel catalogues and itineraries found that 20 of the most popular travel agencies and booking sites are taking tourists shopping, dining or for an overnight stay in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. 

None of the companies informs potential consumers that they will be visiting an illegal settlement, and only six mention or imply that one will be outside Israeli territory.

Thomas Cook, Collette and On the Go Tours, for example, visit the Ahava Visitor Center without telling tourists they are leaving Israel. 

Saga Holidays describes a stopover and wine tasting in the Golan Heights settlement Katzrin as a visit to “the new Israeli town of Katzrin”. 

Booking.com offers rooms in “The Garden Suite Apartment”, which the website says is located in “Jerusalem (Israel)”, but the accommodation is situated in the Gilo settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The tourists ought to have a cause of action against the tour companies and claim compensation for having been fraudulently misled and exposed to criminal activity.

John Dugard, professor of international law and former UN special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights

In another case, the large travel agency GoEco, which describes itself as “a leading eco-tourism company” with a selection of “ethical volunteer projects abroad”, offers a two-to-eight week volunteer programme in the “Mountain Eco Lodge” in what is supposedly Israel.

According to GoEco, the lodge “sets an example of modern sustainable living” on “one of the highest peaks in Israel” in Nimrod, “a small Israeli town in the Golan Heights”.

It is not mentioned that Nimrod is an Israeli settlement, illegal under international law.

This information may seem even more crucial when considering that one of the main activities as a volunteer is construction work – “the rewarding experience of building structures from the ground up” – which means that the participants will directly contribute to the settlement’s construction.

According to John Dugard, professor of international law and former UN special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, the travel agencies’ customers are unknowingly “aiding and abetting” the crime of establishing illegal settlements.

“In theory, this exposes tourists to prosecution for having purchased illegal goods,” said Dugard, who added that though holidaymakers are not going to be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court for such an offence, travel agencies should be warning tourists that they are about to commit a crime.

“The tourists ought to have a cause of action against the tour companies and claim compensation for having been fraudulently misled and exposed to criminal activity,” Dugard said.

‘An effective way to reproduce the official Israeli narrative’

Over the past years, the Israeli government has invested heavily in building hotels and tourism development in West Bank settlements, and according to settler spokespersons, recent years have seen settlement tourism grow.

Earlier this year, a leaked EU Heads of Mission report warned that “tourist settlements” in occupied East Jerusalem were being used “as a political tool to modify the historical narrative and to support, legitimise and expand settlements”.

The conclusions are backed by Rami Khalil Isaac, a Palestinian senior lecturer at the Academy for Tourism at the Dutch NHTV Breda University, who has been studying tourism in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“Tourism is becoming an effective way to reproduce the official Israeli narrative. Many of these tours to settlements in the Golan Heights or the West Bank eventually serve to normalise these places being considered parts of Israel,” Isaac said.

Palestinians, including Palestinian tour guides, are generally not allowed to access the tourist attractions that are developed as part of settlement projects. Concurrently, Israeli authorities and settler organisations are taking control of a growing amount of historical, archaeological and religious sites on occupied Palestinian land.

While Israeli tour operators can continue their excursions to the sites on occupied territory, Palestinian tour guides are mostly restricted from crossing from the West Bank into Jerusalem or Israel.

According to Brian Reeves of the Israeli NGO Peace Now, the locations where settler organisations establish tourist sites come to work as a “land grab”.

“Touristic settlements also attract Israeli domestic tourism, which works to cement in every day Israelis’ minds a need to forever hold onto the territory,” he said. 

Speaking in the shade of his souvenir stand in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, local shop-owner Assem Barakat emphasised that Israel is in control of all borders adjacent to the Palestinian territories.

Tourists are therefore most often travelling with companies operating from Israel – also when visiting West Bank locations such as Bethlehem.

“Many don’t even know that they are not in Israel when coming here. And others have been told to stay alert – that it can be dangerous to go here,” he said.

But by pretending that they are not visiting Palestine, the travel agencies are only repeating that same notion of the territory – that it is something to be scared of.

Rami Khalil Isaac, lecturer

The examination of travel brochures also shows that for 20 companies, including TUI and Trafalgar Travel, locations in occupied Palestinian territories are central to marketing campaigns, while depicting them as being part of Israel. 

For instance, the main photo on TUI’s website is from occupied East Jerusalem, while the headline about a round trip there is “Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Israel”, even though the international community does not recognise Israel’s annexation of occupied East Jerusalem, while Bethlehem is administered by the Palestinian Authority.

According to Isaac, the lecturer at the NHTV Breda University, tourist agencies may be reluctant to mention that they will be visiting Palestinian territories because the areas are known for conflict.

“But by pretending that they are not visiting Palestine, the travel agencies are only repeating that same notion of the territory – that it is something to be scared of,” he said.

Bookings website Airbnb has been criticised before for listing properties in settlements on occupied Palestinian land as being inside the state of Israel.

Responses

In 2010 and 2015, the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned further publication of Israeli tourist campaigns which portrayed East Jerusalem as part of Israel. 

The 2015 verdict was later changed in a second investigation, as the watchdog group decided that the advert was not likely to mislead consumers “into taking a transactional decision that they would otherwise not have taken”.

The ASA told Al Jazeera that it cannot comment on cases that have not been through its complaints and investigations process.

After being contacted by Al Jazeera, On The Go Tours said it would remove the visit to the Ahava Visitor Centre from its Israel trip. 

Topdeck, Thomas Cook and Collette said they would correct their websites to ensure Palestinian Territories are accurately identified as part of the itinerary.

“We’re sorry that this element of the tour wasn’t previously made clear,” a Thomas Cook spokesman said. 

Thomas Cook, via its tour provider Collette, is however not altering its itinerary and will keep visiting the Ahava Visitor Center. 

Collette did not wish to comment on whether it would start informing guests that they would be visiting a settlement on their tours.

Riviera Travel admitted that its website did not provide the reader with the representation that it had originally intended, and said that it would commit to reviewing it.

Since being contacted by Al Jazeera, GoEco has removed The Mountain Eco Lodge from its website. In an email, its co-director said that it no longer works with the lodge.

In an email, Tripadvisor spokesman Brian Hoyt did not touch upon the company’s listings in settlements and said that it seeks “to provide geographical information in how we describe a property or landmark’s location that is both practical and consistent with other sources that travellers might use visiting those areas”.

TUI, Mercury Holidays, Explore Travel, TourRadar and the Israeli Government Tourist Office did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

Despite several attempts, Al Jazeera also did not receive a response from: Virgin Vacations; Artisans of Leisure; Travel55, Trafalgar; Tours4fun; Gate1; Cosmos; Mayflower Cruises and Tours; Overseas Adventure Travels; Expedia; Booking.com; Travelocity, Trivago; Orbitz, Abercrombie Kent; Titan Travel; Globus Journeys; Key Tours and Saga Holidays.

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Travel agencies that visited Israeli settlements without informing customers: Thomas Cook, Virgin Vacations, Saga Holidays, Artisans of Leisure, Gate 1, Collette Tours, Overseas Adventure Travels, Travel 55, Explore Travel, On the Go Tours, GoEco, Key Tours,  Tours4fun.

Booking sites that offered accommodation without informing customers that they will be staying in settlements: Expedia, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, Travelocity, Trivago, Orbitz, TourRadar. 

Travel agencies that depicted occupied territories as Israel: Abercrombie Kent, Thomas Cook, Virgin Vacations, Saga Holidays, Artisans of Leisure, TUI, Globus Journeys, Gate 1, Topdeck, Mercury Holidays, Riviera Travel, Titan Travel, Travel 55, Collette Tours, Trafalgar Travel, Cosmos, Key Tours, Mayflower Cruises and Tours, Overseas Adventure Travels, Tours4fun.

LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May faced hostility on all sides and an open threat of a leadership challenge from a leading Brexiteer MP, crippling her efforts to sell her Brexit deal to the House of Commons and the wider British public and threatening her grip on power.

The prime minister, who secured Cabinet agreement for the plan on Wednesday evening only for her Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab to resign on Thursday morning, insisted the draft deal was “in the national interest” and that to reject it would take the country back to “square one.”

But only a handful of Conservative MPs spoke up in support, and May was met with fierce opposition from the Labour party, from Brexiteer MPs within her own party and from her Northern Irish backers, the Democratic Unionist Party. Leading Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg formally called for her to “step aside.”

The prime minister now faces yet another battle for her own political survival as well as a fight to push her deal through the House of Commons, which must approve the agreement before she can formally commit to it in Brussels.

May faces two immediate threats; first the possibility of a leadership challenge from within her own party, which could be triggered if 48 Conservative MPs are prepared to declare they no longer have confidence in the prime minister, and then the MPs’ vote on the deal. With opposition on all sides increasingly vocal, May now faces the most sustained pressure of her premiership and Britain a period of intense uncertainty, with no clear precedent for what happens next in the event that the prime minister cannot retain enough support to drive her Brexit plan through.

The British pound, which had strengthened on news of the deal and Cabinet support on Wednesday, dropped again following Raab’s resignation, reflecting increasing concerns the U.K. could crash out of the EU with no deal at all in March 2019 and such a scenario could prove economically costly for the U.K.

Leadership challenge

Jacob Rees-Mogg, chair of the European Research Group, an organizing committee of Brexiteer MPs, accused the prime minister of breaking her promises on Brexit and asked her to give him a reason not to formally call for a leadership challenge within the Conservative party.

An hour later, Rees-Mogg told a meeting of the ERG in Westminster that he would be writing to Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 committee of Tory MPs, who under Conservative party rules must call a leadership contest if 48 MPs write to him expressing no confidence in May.

In his letter to Brady, Rees-Mogg said it was in the national interest for May to stand aside.

“The draft withdrawal agreement presented to parliament today has turned out to be worse than anticipated and fails to meet the promises given to the nation by the prime minister, either on her own account or on behalf of us all in the Conservative Party Manifesto,” he wrote.

Rees-Mogg commands the support of dozens of MPs as part of the pro-Brexit ERG faction and his threat may be seen as an instruction for others to also write to Brady and trigger a contest.

The ERG’s deputy chairman, Steve Baker, said in a statement: “We’ve tried everything to change policy but not the Prime Minister but it has not worked. It is too late. We need a new leader.”

May was told by another Brexiteer MP, Mark Francois, that it looked “mathematically impossible” for her to get her draft deal through the House of Commons. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn made clear his party would not support it, Brexiteer Conservatives seem ranged against it, and Northern Ireland’s DUP now seem set to reject it.

The Northern Irish party’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds, in a cutting criticism, said it would be a “waste of time” to explain his objections “since she clearly doesn’t listen.”

Anger at the deal among Conservative Euroskeptics and the DUP centers on plan to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland regardless of the outcome of the future trade negotiation.

The so-called backstop arrangement, which May insisted neither she nor the EU wanted to see come into force, would see the U.K. remain in a de facto customs union, with Northern Ireland continuing to operate under some single market regulations, and therefore under different rules to the U.K. in some sectors.

May appeared to pin her hopes of persuading MPs to back the deal on the promise that the backstop will never be required and that the permanent future relationship between the U.K. and the EU would meet her previous pledges to “take back control” of the U.K.’s borders, laws and spending, while protecting the union and securing “frictionless trade” with the EU.

My deal or no deal

Despite intense pressure, May showed no sign of changing course. During her Commons statement, she ruled out extending the Article 50 negotiating period, or calling for a second referendum. Facing calls from several Labour MPs and from former Remain-supporting MPs in her own party to back another vote, May said she did not want to follow other EU members who she said had ignored the wishes of their voters in previous referendums.

May said there would shortly be “more detail” for MPs on the future relationship.

“I’ve seen on other European issues … other member states of the European Union taking matters back to their populace, having a referendum, the vote has come out against what the EU wanted and effectively there has then been a second vote, a sort of ‘go back and think again’ vote. I don’t think it’s right that we should do that in this country,” she said.

U.K. officials said that the second document published Tuesday, a political statement rather than a legally binding treaty, which outlines both sides’ intentions for the future relationship, was not the final text and that a more detailed document would be agreed in the run-up to a special European Council summit on November 25. May said there would shortly be “more detail” for MPs on the future relationship.

Both former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and former Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey, who both resigned this morning, cited what they called a threat to the union in their resignation letters. Two junior ministers — Brexit minister Suella Braverman and Northern Ireland minister Shailesh Vara — also resigned, as did parliamentary private secretaries Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Ranil Jayawardena.

Tom McTague and Annabelle Dickson contributed reporting.

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Image: mokee81/gettyimages

The Saudi-UAE military alliance says it is halting its offensive on the western Yemeni city of Hodeidah, after nearly two weeks of fierce air and ground assault to push out Houthi rebels from the strategic city.

A source in the military alliance told the Reuters news agency on Thursday that “the coalition has instructed forces on the ground to halt fighting inside Hodeidah” – which is the port of entry for most food, aid and commercial goods.

A non-military source with knowledge of the decision said the coalition was responding to international requests for a ceasefire to ensure the Houthis attend planned peace talks.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from neighbouring Djibouti, said there had been limited reaction from the Houthis but the armed group was “prepared to continue fighting”.

“So far, there’s been a lull in fighting. The Houthis have not confirmed the ceasefire but have said that both sides are keeping to their positions.”

Between November 3 and 12, there had been more than 200 air attacks on the city, with the fighting killing at least 600 Houthis according to an AFP tally.

A number of countries had recently called for a cessation ahead of renewed UN-led peace efforts to end the war which has pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.

Among them were the United States, Britain and France, three countries that provide the coalition with military equipment, intelligence and logistics.

The UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, said the Emirates supported UN plans to hold peace talks in Sweden by the end of the year.

“We welcome early convening of UN-led talks in Sweden,” Gargash, tweeted. He said the coalition would “urge all parties to take advantage of [the] window of opportunity to restart the political process” at a UN Security Council meeting on Friday.

We welcome early convening of UN-led talks in Sweden. At UNSC meeting on Friday, Coalition will urge all parties to take advantage of window of opportunity to restart political process.

We look forward to hosting Martin Griffiths this week in Abu Dhabi.

— د. أنور قرقاش (@AnwarGargash) November 14, 2018

Yemen’s president vows to liberate city

Yemen‘s exiled president said late on Wednesday that he backed UN-proposed talks to end the fighting but vowed to “liberate” the port city regardless of the peace process.

A spokesman for the president said via the official Saba news agency that Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi “has issued directives to back all efforts that guarantee the interests of Yemen in reaching sustainable peace” based on UN resolutions.

“The battle of the Yemeni people to liberate Hodeidah is inevitable, whether through peace or war,” the statement said.

The conflict in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, began when the government slashed fuel subsidies in the summer of 2014, prompting angry protests and forcing thousands onto the capital’s streets.

The Houthis seized the opportunity and marched south from their stronghold of Saada province to the capital, Sanaa, where they toppled Hadi’s government.

The US-backed Saudi-UAE military coalition intervened in 2015 with a massive air campaign aimed at reinstalling Hadi’s government.

Since then, data collected by Al Jazeera and the Yemen Data Project has found that more than 18,000 air attacks have been carried out in Yemen, with almost one-third of all bombing missions striking non-military sites.

Weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals, as well as water and electricity plants, have been targeted, killing and wounding thousands.