Squatter’s elaborate cave home in danger as Israel moves to evict man after 50 years on Mediterranean beach

Over half a century, Nissim Kahlon has transformed a tiny cave on a Mediterranean beach into an elaborate underground labyrinth filled with chiseled tunnels, detailed mosaic floors, and a network of staircases and chambers.

He lives in the one-of-a-kind artistic creation, which is a popular destination for local curiosity seekers, and Kahlon, 77, is quick to welcome visitors into his subterranean home. Now, Israel’s government wants him out.

Fifty years after Kahlon moved into the home, Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry served him an eviction notice, saying the structure is illegal and threatened Israel’s coastline.

“Instead of encouraging me, they’re denigrating me,” Kahlon said, sitting in his mosaic-tiled living room, rolling a cigarette. The sun glimmered on the sea outside his west-facing windows.

Kahlon was living in a tent along the Herzliya beach north of Tel Aviv in 1973 when he says he began scratching into the sandstone cliffs and moved into a cave he carved.

(Nissim Kahlon has spent the last over 50 years transforming a cave into an ‘elaborate underground labyrinth.’AP)

Over time, his simple hole in the wall turned into a real-life sandcastle on steroids, filled with recycled wood, metal, ceramic, and stone.

Nearly every surface of his main quarters is covered in elaborate mosaics, made from discarded tiles of every color that he collected from dumpsters in Tel Aviv over the years.

Recycled glass bottles serve as decoration and insulation on exterior walls.

The complex has plumbing, a phone line, and electric lighting in its many rooms, and Kahlon insists his construction is sturdy.

(Kahlon resting in his bed overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.AP)

Kahlon said he received a demolition order back in 1974 that was never carried out.

Since then, he says has never heard any opposition from the authorities until last year.

(The Israeli government wants Kahlon to move out of his house, saying ‘the structure is illegal.’AP)

But his main argument is that local authorities connected his cave to the electric grid decades ago.

“I am not leaving here. I am ready for them to bury me here,” said Kahlon.

“I have nowhere to go, I have no other home.”

Kahlon’s cave home is on the outskirts of Herzliya, a seafront city 8 miles (13 kilometers) north of Tel Aviv.

(Kahlon’s home is filled with recycled wood, metal, ceramic, and stone.AP)

(The Environmental Protection Ministry said that Kahlon has reduced beach access for the public.AP)

Ref: Squatter’s elaborate cave home in danger as Israel moves to evict man after 50 years on Mediterranean beach (nypost)