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Planet Earth Under Threat

West Bank Despatch from Tessa McGregor

  • Alasdair Cross
  • 6 Aug 07, 10:08 AM

deadsea2.jpg
The presenter of 'Wild Arabia', Tessa McGregor has been travelling through Israel, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian Territories. Today she reports from Ein Gedi at the southern tip of the Dead Sea, romantic location from the 'Song of Songs' ("My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna flowers in the vineyards of Ein Gedi") and wildlife hotspot....

It’s hot driving through the West Bank, very hot. We are following the border fence and barbed wire that cut through this valley that runs between the Jordanian and Judean hills. Road signs warn of deer crossing – I find it hard to imagine them in these lands and strange to think I’m travelling through the Great Rift Valley, passing Biblical sites on the banks of the River Jordan. Palestinian farms and settlements peter out before I get my first views of the Dead Sea. This vast, azure expanse of water is fringed with green: grass, shrubs, grasses - that means fresh water. I didn’t expect that. The road rises towards Ein Gedi. We go through a military checkpoint. A young man and woman in uniform wave us through, all guns and smiles. I didn’t expect that either! Nor to see a man in a green caravan, selling home-made lemonade in brightly coloured Arabic glasses to two bikini-clad girls next to this checkpoint-cum-viewpoint. We are now in Ein Gedi nature reserve: limestone peaks and ridges rise steeply up to 1000m above sea level from the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth at 400m below sea level.

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