{"id":190437,"date":"2018-03-21T20:26:02","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T18:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=190437"},"modified":"2018-03-21T23:50:12","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T21:50:12","slug":"work-starts-to-clear-mines-from-traditional-site-of-jesuss-baptism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/work-starts-to-clear-mines-from-traditional-site-of-jesuss-baptism\/","title":{"rendered":"Work starts to clear mines from traditional site of Jesus\u2019s baptism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Israeli and international experts have started clearing thousands of wartime landmines and explosive devices from one of Christianity\u2019s holiest sites, in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli defense ministry said Tuesday.<\/h4>\n

It said work began this week to clear about 3,000 pieces of ordnance believed to be scattered around the Qasr Al-Yahud Greek Orthodox monastery, on the banks of the River Jordan, at the spot where many believe Jesus was baptized by his cousin John.<\/p>\n

The mines date from the Six-Day War of 1967 in which Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan, informs\u00a0arabnews.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the 3,000, some of them are Israeli, some of them are Jordanian and some of them we\u2019ll only know when we find them,\u201d defense ministry spokeswoman Arielle Hefez told AFP.<\/p>\n

Britain-based HALO Trust, the world\u2019s largest humanitarian mine-clearing organization, is working with the Israel National Mine Action Authority (INMAA) to clear what the defense ministry described as \u201croughly one million square meters (10.8 million square feet) of land.\u201d<\/p>\n

HALO said on its website that there are an estimated 2,600 anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines at the Qasr Al-Yahud site, restricting access for the more than 400,000 pilgrims who visit each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is home to ancient churches and monasteries, which haven\u2019t been safe to visit for nearly 50 years,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

It said that according to testimonies of former soldiers, an unknown number of booby traps were also laid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis makes the clearance of the site a complex task.\u201d<\/p>\n

HALO estimated that the clearance work would take two years and cost around $1.5 million.
\nThe defense ministry said the site houses churches of eight different denominations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the clearance is complete and INMAA and HALO officials can assure the site is safe, the church plots will be returned to their respective denominations and visitors will once again be able to visit these holy sites.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another site on the Jordanian side of the river \u2014 Wadi Al-Kharrar, or Bethany Beyond the Jordan \u2014 is also venerated as the place of Jesus\u2019s baptism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israeli and international experts have started clearing thousands of wartime landmines and explosive devices from one of Christianity\u2019s holiest sites, in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli defense ministry said Tuesday. It said work began this week to clear about 3,000 pieces of ordnance believed to be scattered around the Qasr Al-Yahud Greek Orthodox monastery,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":190436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4888,62,4856,14855],"class_list":["post-190437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-autocephalous-orthodox-churches","tag-baptism","tag-jerusalem","tag-jesus-christ","tag-mines"],"better_featured_image":{"id":190436,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":1703,"height":1075,"file":"2018\/03\/Manastirea-Qasr-al-Yahud.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"Manastirea-Qasr-al-Yahud-360x360.jpg","width":360,"height":360,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Manastirea-Qasr-al-Yahud-360x360.jpg"},"medium":{"file":"Manastirea-Qasr-al-Yahud-890x562.jpg","width":890,"height":562,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Manastirea-Qasr-al-Yahud-890x562.jpg"},"large":{"file":"Manastirea-Qasr-al-Yahud-1280x808.jpg","width":1280,"height":808,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Manastirea-Qasr-al-Yahud-1280x808.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"Picasa","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1521655481","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":190435,"source_url":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Manastirea-Qasr-al-Yahud.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190437\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=190437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190437\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190436\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=190437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=190437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arhiva.basilica.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=190437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}