The work involves digging up the land and sifting through the soil. Photo / AP
Pilgrims seeking serenity during a visit to Jesus' traditional baptism site may be rattled to discover they are surrounded by thousands of land mines left over from Middle East conflicts.
But a project now under way plans to rid the West Bank site of the explosive devices, clearing away the relics of war that have blemished the sacred place for nearly five decades.
Land mines still speckle many parts of the territory. But the effort at the baptism site carries particular weight because of its importance to the world's Christians and the delicate international diplomacy that was required to get the project off the ground.
The project's organisers had to navigate a virtual minefield of often quarrelling church denominations, as well as Israeli and Palestinian officials.
"To see a site that is visited by over half a million pilgrims and tourists each year and for them to come in their buses and be so close to land mines is very unusual," said James Cowan, the head of The Halo Trust, an international mine-clearing charity carrying out the project in partnership with Israel's Defence Ministry. "We hope that pilgrims and tourists will be able to visit this site and celebrate the baptism of Christ in the way that was intended."
Christians believe John the Baptist baptised Jesus at the site, a lush stretch of the Jordan River flanked by desert - Christianity's third holiest site after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, built on the spot where Christian belief says Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, constructed on the site where tradition holds Jesus was born.
The baptism marks the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. Many modern-day visitors don white robes and immerse themselves in the sacred waters in a show of faith.
Churches were built in the area as early as the 4th century. By the 1930s, Greek, Coptic, Syrian and Catholic churches, among others, all had plots in the river valley, erecting golden-domed shrines and other structures.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. Shortly after that, clergy fled their plots and Israel began planting land mines both on church land and in the surrounding area to fend off enemies. Israeli officials say that among the 3000 explosive devices in the baptism site's vicinity are also booby traps laid by Palestinian militants, as well as explosives from the time when the territory was under Jordanian control. Unexploded ordnances also litter the area.
"We will do all the necessary quality assurances so that the territory will be totally clean and totally safe so that civilians can wander around here," said Marcel Aviv, the director of the Israeli demining authority, INMAA.
A small path was cleared for Pope John Paul II's visit in 2000 and pilgrims for years had to co-ordinate their visits with the Israeli military, because of security and land mine concerns.
In 2011, the site was officially opened to the public after Israel cleared a narrow road leading to the Jordan River. Today, buses ferry hundreds of thousands of visitors along that road each year, with the surrounding area remaining off limits.
The US$1.15 million ($1.6m) demining project, half of which was funded by the Israeli Defence Ministry and half by private donors, aims to open up access to the area for pilgrims, clergy and tourists in about a year.
The demining project began this month. An armoured vehicle digs into the earth, hoists up a chunk of soil and then strains it through a sifter, searching for anti-personnel mines the size of a block of Camembert cheese.
To detect the mines, experts have had to look at historical records, interview former Israeli soldiers and survey old maps. Anti-tank mines, with heavier charges, are embedded to the west of an access road while anti-personnel mines and booby traps are located within the church plots.
But experts said the reconnaissance work isn't exact and the geography - the ever-shifting top soil of the Jordan River Valley - has displaced some of them. Painstaking hard work fills in the gaps, with drones, dogs, metal detectors and bulldozers used to sniff out and snuff out the leftover mines.
"It's a challenge that requires working slowly, in a safe way and not to take any chances," said Aviv, from Israel's de-mining authority.
Israeli authorities said yesterday that they have decided to block most of Gaza's small Christian community from entering Israel for Easter celebrations, citing security concerns.
Israel maintains a blockade over the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and restricts entry from the territory. But it often eases the restrictions during religious holidays to allow Gaza's residents to visit holy sites in Jerusalem or to visit relatives in Israel or the West Bank.
Cogat, the defence body that oversees Palestinian civilian affairs, said it would let only Christians aged 55 and older and children under age 16 enter Israel for Easter, which is celebrated by Catholics tomorrow and Orthodox Christians next week. It said the restrictions were needed after previous cases in which Gazan visitors overstayed their permitted time in Israel.
A Christian leader in Gaza said the restrictions meant only about one-third of the community's 1100 members would be allowed into Israel to celebrate.
- AP