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Mop-up operations

Drawing on lessons from the First Jewish–Roman War, the rebels assumed that isolated desert shelters would provide better odds of survival than open battle or the defense of towns. However, they underestimated the tenacity of Roman pursuit, which continued for months after Betar's fall. Roman forces discovered and besieged roughly half of these caves, at times building siege camps above them to cut off supplies and force surrender through starvation. Archaeological evidence—including skeletal remains and embedded arrowheads—indicates that some died from hunger, thirst, or Roman assaults. A legend in Lamentations Rabbah tells of Jews trapped in a cave who, in desperation, resorted to cannibalism; one son unknowingly ate his father and cried, "Woe to me! I have eaten the flesh of my father."