Precis

It’s the lowest place on earth. A sea in the middle of a desert. Fed by the waters of the Jordan River, nestled on the borders of Israel, Jordan and the West Bank, the Dead Sea has supported life and provided spiritual healing for millennia.

But today the Dead Sea is disappearing, its waterline receding year by year. And the fight over this diminishing resource is fuelling tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.

In a visually stunning story, correspondent Eric Tlozek travels through this ancient land to unravel the mysteries of this vanishing sea.

Upstream in the Jordan Valley, the waters which feed into the Dead Sea have been diverted for agriculture and now there’s not enough to go around.

Zeyad, whose family lives in the Jordan Valley, says Palestinian farmers aren’t getting their fair share of water.

“They have a very big shortage of water. The water allocated for this village actually is less than 50% of the needed water.”

David, an Israeli farmer, says the Jewish settlers have used the water well, making an arid land productive and fertile.

“When we came to the Jordan Valley, we found a desert,” says David, a spokesperson for Jewish settlers in the West Bank. “Nothing was growing here. So now the Jordan Valley is green.”

Downstream, as a result of less water, the landscape around the Dead Sea is being dramatically transformed and is collapsing in on itself. It’s creating a strange phenomenon - ‘sinkholes’.

Highways which once teemed with traffic are now buckled and broken. Holiday resorts which once hosted families are abandoned and ruined.

“It’s a spectacular landscape that developed in a few years,” says an Israeli government geologist.

Meanwhile, the faithful still believe in the waters’ healing powers even though the water they bless now comes from sewage pipes.

“Once the water of the river is blessed…anyone that has any kind of pain or any kind of bad feelings he can wash himself with this water and he can be healed,” says an Armenian Orthodox priest.

There’s debate about schemes which could halt the sea’s decline but there’s little political will.

“Who will pay the price for this water?” asks one geologist.

This is an epic journey through a land with a rich history, a troubled present and an uncertain future.

“If our children will say that they wanted to save it, they can't even do it because it's too late. Everything that's happening here, it's because of us,” says Carmit, an Israeli hydrologist.

Dead Sea sunrise/GVs

Music

00:00

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: The lowest place on earth, the Dead Sea, is slipping away. It’s been the site of dramatic biblical stories, and the area is still contested today.

00:06

DAVID ELHAYANI:  This is the promised land by God to the Jewish.

00:20

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: For millennia treasured for its healing powers.

00:25

Dead Sea tourists

YOUNG MAN: I have skin issues, and the sea, when you’re in it for a couple of hours it almost takes everything away.

0029

WOMAN: You're floating, it feels wonderful.

00:35

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Modern day pilgrims still come to bathe in the salty, mineral rich waters.

00:39

MAN:  Every Sunday we’re coming here, with company.

00:46

Aerial over Dead Sea /Carmit standing on shore

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: But this natural wonder is vanishing at an alarming rate.

CARMIT:  This is a symbol of what man can do the nature, without even knowing that he’s doing it.

00:50

Sinkhole in road

01:04

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: At the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the land and its diminishing water.

ZEYAD FUQAHA: This is a crisis, this is unacceptable for us.

01:09

Eric with Ittai and Gidon

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: In a divided region, the solutions are disputed and costly.

01:19

ITTAI:  Who will pay the price for this water?

01:24

Aerial over sea and sinkholes.

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: It might take a modern day miracle to save the Dead Sea.

01:27

TITLE:
The Sinking Sea

Music

01:35

Satellite map showing location of Dead Sea

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: The Dead Sea is surrounded by Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. It’s fed by waters of the River Jordan.

01:42

En Gedi GVs

This used to be the En Gedi beachside resort. Families and tourists would stop here to enjoy the sparkling waters.

01:58

Eric walks with Carmit at En Gedi to sinkhole

02:16

Super:
Reporter
Eric Tlozek

Now, we’re walking in to a highly dangerous site, off limits to the public.

02:19

"You can really see it there. Look"

CARMIT:  "Yep."

02:26

That used to be Route 90, which was the main highway in Israel, and you can see what is the situation now. A few sinkholes at the main road and also some on the right and on the left of this road, and now there is no way to use it.

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter:  And this was only five years ago?

CARMIT:  Yep.

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Five years ago there were trucks coming along here, buses?

CARMIT: And I think that more than six months people was driving here and they were holes underneath it.

02:31

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: So it was actually hollow?

CARMIT:  Yeah, like a sponge.

03:08

Sinkholes

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Geologist Carmit Ish Shalom lived here for a decade, studying a mysterious phenomenon - sinkholes.

"This area is the first area where the sinkholes caused a big problem?"

03:13

CARMIT:  Yeah, here, near the beach. That was the first sinkholes that we found.

03:26

Sinkhole in holiday park

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: This former holiday park was abandoned when sections of it started disappearing into the ground.

CARMIT:  At the end of the '80s,

03:33

Carmit interview at sinkhole

they found here the first sinkhole and the resort was just closed immediately.

03:43

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter:  And how do you feel when you see this?

CARMIT:  It’s really scary to think that children could run here on top of nothing. And that was also the main income source of En Gedi and they can’t use it anymore.

03:50

Carmit at Dead Sea shore

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: As the Dead Sea continues to shrink, Carmit Ish Shalom knows more and more sinkholes will come.

04:12

GFX 3D animation, sinkholes

When the salty water of the Dead Sea recedes, it leaves a thick underground layer of salt. Winter floods rush down from the mountains. The fresh water saturates and dissolves that salt and huge underground caverns form. When they eventually collapse, sinkholes appear.

04:23

Carmit

CARMIT:  There are more than 6,000 different sinkholes in the Israeli side.

04:53

Abandoned En Gedi resort

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: The resort of En Gedi shows how far and how fast the waters have receded. People used to stop here for a swim, but now the water is hundreds of metres away and the facilities have been destroyed by sinkholes. And they’re still forming

04:58

Carmit and Eric at sinkhole. Carmit throws in stone

CARMIT:  It’s a new one. You want to hear it?

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Sure.

CARMIT:  1,2,3,4… It’s still getting, 6 it might be.

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: That is a long way down.

05:25

Eventually this area is going to collapse?

CARMIT:  Yeah. And the reason it’s not collapsing (yet) is because we have lots of asphalt here and it’s holding it.

05:41

Music

05:51

Aerial. Floodplain

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Just near En Gedi is a floodplain that flows into the Dead Sea.

05:06

Ittai and Gidon drive to river bed

Scientists from the geological survey of Israel come here regularly to try and learn more about sinkholes.

06:04

Eric greets Ittai and Gidon

I’m meeting geologists Ittai Gavrieli and Gidon Baer. They’re going to take me down the dry river beds to check their equipment.

06:22

Gidon, Ittai, Eric to river bed

GIDON:  Those cracks are an indication that we are approaching a sinkhole area.  Just beyond that sinkhole we have a camera.

06:35

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: These scientists have been studying this area for a decade, especially the flash floods that rush through here.

06:47

GIDON: We are now just getting to our camera. It is a time-lapse camera.

06:57

Camera in river bed

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: The cameras are placed all over the floodplain, waiting to capture footage of these flood events.

07:03

Time lapse footage of flash floods

GIDON:   Every winter we get flash floods and flash floods generally used to flow directly to the Dead Sea.

07:14

Gidon interview

But since a few sinkholes formed along the river beds, flash floods started to be swallowed into those sinkholes and dissolve the salt layer – the 20 metre deep salt layer – and move eastwards towards the Dead Sea, but underground.

07:23

At the beginning, we really didn’t know where they came out. But 2012, 2013, we started seeing that these waters come out in other sinkholes.

07:42

So we put cameras in the places where the water was swallowed and cameras where the water came out, and we saw the time difference and really saw that if you look at the water – and it’s totally calm – and a few hours after a flash flood you can really see a vigorous spring coming out of the water, full of dust, full of clay carried by the water from the flash flood.

07:58

Eric walks with Ittai and Gidon

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Only the scientists are allowed to come here, because the whole area is considered too dangerous for the public.

GIDON: We are walking above an area which is really forming an underground cave system, that’s what happening here now.

08:27

Gidon takes water sample from sinkhole

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: They test the water coming out of a sinkhole to see where it comes from. That tells them how quickly the caves are forming and how big they are.

GIDON: It matters first of all for the sake of safety.

08:45

The more tunnels, the more dissolution, the less safe it is.

09:05

Music

09:09

Sinkholes

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: This landscape is changing fast; these giant sinkholes are only four years old.

09:15

Eric with Ittai at sinkhole

ITTAI:  You see this sinkhole? This evolved within 2-3 years to what you see here now. It’s a spectacular landscape that developed over a few years. And over time we envision that the entire area will be a huge sinkhole with whatever water will eventually overtake it.

09:22

In car

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: The scientists take their samples and information back to Jerusalem for testing and analysis.

09:49

Geological Survey of Israel building

09:56

Eric in lab with Gidon examining water samples

GIDON: These are samples we took together.

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: So these are all from sinkholes?

GIDON: Yeah.

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Chemical analysis of the water samples will reveal more about the cave systems, like what minerals have been dissolved and how quickly that’s happening.

10:00

Eric and Gidon at computer

The results will inform the Israeli government about how the landscape is changing, and how it can be safely used in the future.

10:17

Gidon interview. Super:
Dr Gidon Baer
Geological Survey of Israel

GIDON:  We can give them an estimation of where the dangerous areas are. And so, this system is short-term prediction. We also use this information to map the entire area in terms of sinkhole hazard, and this is used for general purposes of planning, planning recreation areas, planning buildings, planning a new settlement even. Don't plan a settlement in an area where we can tell you that it's going to be prone to sinkholes.

10:27

Canals, evaporation ponds

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: One reason the Dead Sea is shrinking is because humans are taking the water out. It’s pumped via canals to shallow evaporation ponds. They’ve become the new home of the Dead Sea tourism industry. But many visitors don’t realise they’re not swimming in the natural sea.

11:13

Tourism resort

MAN 1:   I think this place is amazing. So whether it’s manmade or not, I think it’s got a lot of history. I think it’s- just look at what the beauty is today and how do we preserve it.

MAN 2: The water is great.

11:37

You can float on water because it’s the Dead Sea, it contains a lot of minerals and salts, and that makes you float, which makes everybody enjoy the water.

11:53

WOMAN: And it makes you very young!

12:09

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Nearby, factories in Israel and Jordan

12:14

Potash factory

are extracting valuable minerals. Making potash for fertiliser is big business here. More than half a billion cubic metres of water is sucked out from the Dead Sea every year; that’s roughly equivalent to the volume of Sydney Harbour.

12:17

The factories pump a lot back in, but the Geological Survey of Israel says, overall, they’re responsible for roughly a quarter of the water lost from the Dead Sea. 

12:36

Driving

To understand the main cause of the Dead Sea’s demise we have to travel north to its source.

12:53

GFX Map. Sea of Galilee/Jordan River/Dead Sea

For thousands of years the Jordan River has carried water from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. All that changed with the creation of Israel in 1948. The water in the Galilee was diverted to supply a growing population and to make the deserts bloom. Jordan, and Syria also take water from this area. The price is a disappearing Dead Sea and an escalating conflict over water. 

13:01

Polytunnels

In the Jordan Valley there’s a big demand for water but not enough to go around.

13:38

Driving with Zeyad to Kardala

Palestinian government worker Zeyad Fuqaha, is taking me into the West Bank to his home village of Kardala.

"How does it feel to go home?"

13:51

ZEYAD:  It's an amazing feeling to be there with your family in your house that you are born in.

14:03

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Zeyad’s family have farmed this land for generations, but the lack of water restricts them.

14:10

Zeyad greets family

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Most farmers living here in the West Bank are Palestinians.

14:24

Zeyad interview

ZEYAD: They have a very big shortage of water. The water allocated for this village actually is less than 50% of the needed water.

14:30

Music

14:41

Zeyad shows vegetable growing in greenhouse

ZEYAD: "Here is the greenhouse."

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Vegetables are grown in greenhouses to preserve water.

"That’s a big one."

14:46

ZEYAD: "You can try it."

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: "Try it raw?"

ZEYAD:  "Raw. I'm eating raw. It's full of iron, by the way."

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: "That tastes much better raw than I expected."

ZEYAD: "I like it like this."

14:58

Zeyad interview in greenhouse

Kardala area we have around five cubic metres per hour, which is supplied by the Israeli company.  They use it for crops, agriculture, and also they use for the household usage.

15:11

The demand is much more higher. You need more than 12 to 15 cubic metres per hour.

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Three times as much.

ZEYAD: Three times as much.

15:28

Greenhouse GVs

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Zeyad says the restrictions placed on Palestinians fuel tensions with the Jewish settlers who take much more water.

15:39

Tank on side of road

The settlers came here after Israel captured and occupied the West Bank in 1967.

15:49

West Bank settlement

International law deems the Jewish settlements illegal. Palestinians say their homeland and their water are being stolen.

ZEYAD: It’s Israeli farms irrigated by Palestinian water which is the water

15:58

beneath our feet right now. Israelis are extracting it from their wells, distributing it to their settlements. Imagine that. Israelis in their settlements,

16:14

Zeyad interview

they are swimming, they are filling up their swimming pools, they are consuming three times to four times of the Palestinians, while the Palestinians here are facing the crisis of drinking water. This is actually... This is a crisis, this is unacceptable for us.

16:29

Jordan Valley Palestinian village

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Around five thousand Palestinians live in three farming villages in this part of the Jordan Valley.

16:46

Zeyad and Eric at engagement party

Today, one family is holding an engagement party.

16:54

ZEYAD: "This is the man who would like to marry tomorrow… and this is his father."

17:00

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: They serve fresh lamb from the village.

ZEYAD: "This is mansaf. This is the number one Palestinian food."

17:06

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: "What's the spice?"

ZEYAD: "It’s the job of the woman. I don't know…"

17:17

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: The population of these villages is growing, but this area is under the full control of the Israeli military.

17:5

ZEYAD: They are pushing them to leave their land, to leave their homes, because of that they are not allowing them to have permits for reconstruction to build a new homes.

17:37

Aerial over greenhouses

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Later, we witnessed these tensions ourselves.

17:45

Israeli military stop work on road building

Outside the village, we see a confrontation between Israeli soldiers and locals. 

17:53

Eric to camera

The Palestinians in this village are trying to build a new road, repave the one to the school. But the Israeli military has come in here and stopped them. They're threatening to seize the truck. That’s because they control everything here. Even what the Palestinians do in their villages, with their money. 

18:11

Israeli military stop work on road building

The road is decades old and the village council got a loan to repair it. There’s nothing they can do to stop the soldiers seizing their equipment.

18:28

Ghassan

GHASSAN FUQAH::Every day they come here, every week, every month and they are forbidding us to do anything. No buildings, no mosques, no anything! Even water pipes, they forbidden us to do that. Why?

18:44

Israeli military seize equipment

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Today the fight is about a road, but the underlying cause is land and water.

19:00

David Elhayani's farm

Over at the Israeli farms it’s a different story – there’s plenty of water.  

19:18

David greets Eric

David Elhayani runs this farm. 

19:29

Workers pack herbs

He also heads the Yesha council, which represents Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

19:38

DAVID:  So when we came to the Jordan Valley, we found a desert.

19:45

David interview

There are some time in the summer we have 52 Celsius degrees. We found a desert. Nothing was growing here. So now the Jordan Valley is green.

19:50

Worker harvests herbs in greenhouse

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: David’s family grows herbs, dates, flowers and vegetables for Israel and export.  His workers are primarily Palestinian.

20:01

David interview

DAVID:  The Route 90 was empty. Now every Palestinian have a new car, sometimes two cars. They don't get it by working in the Palestinian Authority. They get it because they are working with us. Because they get a good salary, because they have the opportunity to buy the cars, the opportunity to build the new houses.

20:24

Music

20:45

Driving into Jewish settlement, David's home

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: The small number of Jewish settlers here live in fenced communities, guarded by the Israeli military. Some believe God gave them this land.  David Elhayani lives in this hilltop settlement above a Palestinian village.

20:53

DAVID:  I came here to the Jordan Valley to Argaman community

21:14

David interview at home

since 1983 I'm a farmer. I have three children, all of them are married, this is their children. They have five and now we hope that we have more.

21:17

Jewish settlement GVs

Music

21:37

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter:  The small settlement is green and quiet. There are irrigated lawns and a swimming pool – although it’s closed. Israel controls all the water in the Jordan Valley under a temporary agreement that was meant to expire by the end of the 1990s. Much more per capita goes to the Jewish settlers, but they don’t see any inequality.

21:42

David interview

DAVID:  We pay more than them for the water. More than them for the water. So they can do whatever they want.

22:09

Razor wire at edge of settlement

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: But there are clearly two different ways of living here, inside and outside the wire. 

22:17

Jerusalem, Armenian Orthodox clergy

It’s not just the Israelis and Palestinians who revere these waters.  Above the Jordan Valley is the ancient city of Jerusalem. Here, priests of the Armenian Orthodox church prepare for an important annual ritual.  Father Koryoun Baghdasaryan is getting ready to head down to the sacred waters of the Jordan River.

22:30

Father Baghdasaryan prepares for ritual

FATHER BAGHDASARYAN:  Today is the feast of the epiphany of the Armenian church and we are getting prepared to go down to the river to the baptismal site where, according to the New Testament, John the Baptist baptised Jesus Christ. For us, it’s very important, especially because only the Armenian church keeps the tradition as it was celebrated in the fourth century by the universal Christian church.

23:02

Father Baghdasaryan drives to Jordan River with police escort

Music

23:38

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: COVID-19 restrictions mean the priests need a police escort, and can only bring 50 people instead of hundreds. They descend through the Judean desert into the Jordan Valley. The baptism site is on the militarised border between Jordan and the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. Access is controlled by the Israeli military.

23:40

Father Baghdasaryan blesses river

At the river, the priests are met by their Armenian counterparts in Jordan across the water.

24:14

Priests collect water

The patriarch blesses the river’s waters and priests collect them to use in baptisms and benedictions throughout the year.

24:30

FATHER BAGHDASARYAN:  Once the water of the river is blessed, a miraculous water and anyone that has any kind of pain or any kind of bad feelings he can wash himself with this water and he can be healed.

24:40

Jordan River

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: While it’s holy water for some, the reality is that the source of the Dead Sea – the Jordan River – is now a polluted stream. All the water that makes it down this far is sewage or from springs too salty for agriculture.

24:58

Bathers at Dead Sea

Back at the Dead Sea and despite the danger from the sinkholes, the more intrepid are still going into the salty water.

25:21

DORON:  It’s so close to Tel Aviv and it’s amazing.  When you’re in the metropolis and you drive one hour and you’re in the desert, in the lowest place on earth. NURIT:  It’s beautiful and we love it. We come here very often.

25:34

SAMANTHA:  A little bit like my own private paradise, like a taste of heaven on earth. It’s like no-man’s land, no-one’s here.

25:47

It’s so dangerous that nobody really can be here. Sometimes it’s scary, like today when I was at the sinkhole a big part of the wall just caved in and made a mini tsunami and I was all alone.

25:56

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: These swimming holes are only accessible because the Dead Sea is shrinking – this place used to be underwater. But the continuing decline means this area won’t stay like this for long.

26:09

DORON:  It's amazing.

26:26

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: There are proposals to pump more treated sewage into the Dead Sea to slow its decline, or even fill the Jordan River with desalinated sea water.

26:29

Satellite map showing proposed desalination plant. Super:
Red to Dead

Another plan, called Red to Dead, would see brine from a proposed desalination plant in Jordan pumped into the sea. But the project has stalled and concerns remain about its environmental impact.

ITTAI: If and when this happens,

26:41

we are going to impose changes on the composition of the lake. Changes that the lake has not seen for millions of years, four to five millions of years.

27:00

Ittai interview. Super:
Dr Ittai Gavrieli
Geological Survey of Israel

Is it feasible at all to bring in hundreds and hundreds of cubic, of many cubic metres to the Dead Sea, for them to evaporate, when there is shortage of water in the region?

27:09

Israeli irrigated farmlands

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: Israel is now pumping a small amount of water back into the system, but it’s not enough. Neither the farmers nor the factories are proposing to take less water to help save the Dead Sea. For the foreseeable future, it’s going to keep shrinking. 

27:25

Ittai and Gidon walk by sinkholes

ITTAI:  But if you look at the vast shores, and mudflats and sinkholes, it’s a beautiful landscape.

27:47

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: These scientists accept the fate of the Dead Sea, but they hope that people will be able to enjoy this unique place.

ITTAI:  If it’s organised

27:57

Ittai interview

and people are aware and it’s well maintained, then it can be a perfect tourism site. I mean, I just imagine, I always compare it to Yellowstone Park. It’s extremely dangerous if you walk there on your own and don’t follow the path and the marks. Same thing should be done here, can be done here, and it could be an amazing attraction.

28:05

Gidon and Ittai at edge of floodplain/Aerial Dead Sea

ERIC TLOZEK, Reporter: But that means accepting a future where the Dead Sea will keep disappearing, its shattering shoreline extending further every year, until it is a much smaller, even saltier shadow of its former self.

CARMIT: It’s a monument for what people are doing

28:25

Carmit interview

without knowing what it’s going to make to the area. When people stopped the Jordan River from entering the Dead Sea, they didn’t think

28:53

Aerials over Dead Sea

that would be the price for it.  If our children will say that they wanted to save it, they can't even do it, because it's too late. Everything that's happening here, it's because of us.

29:03

Music

29:19

Credits [see below]

29:36

Outpoint

29:58