On the western bank of the Jordan River, not far from where Christians believe Jesus was baptized, experts have begun clearing thousands of mines from the ruins of eight churches and surrounding land deserted more than 50 years ago.
Once the anti-tank mines and other explosives are removed, the compounds containing a Roman Catholic church and seven Eastern Catholic churches abandoned after the 1967 Six-Day War can be re-opened, according to HALO Trust, the international mine-clearing charity once sponsored by the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
The charity has undertaken the project in partnership with Israel's Defense Ministry.
The mined area is about a kilometer (half a mile) from Qasr el-Yahud in the West Bank, the baptism site which HALO said was visited by around 570,000 Christian pilgrims last year.
"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, who heads HALO Trust. "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 baptized 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 Sepulcher 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 sees this as a very important project, to restore this place to its former glory," said Marcel Aviv, the director of the Israeli National Mine Action Authority. "We will do all the necessary quality assurance so that the territory will be totally clean and totally safe so that civilians can wander around here."
The $1.15 million demining project, half of which was funded by the Defense Ministry and half by private donors, aims to open up access to the area for pilgrims, clergy and tourists in time for Christmas.
To detect the mines, experts have had to look at historical records, interview former IDF soldiers and survey old maps.
But experts said the reconnaissance work isn't exact and the geography – the ever-shifting topsoil 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 remove the leftover mines.
According to the charity, some of the churches may also be booby-trapped.
The eight churches scattered across the nearly 250-acre expanse of land that borders the baptism site share custodianship of many sites in the Holy Land and often butt heads over how to manage them. It took about four years to get all denominations to agree to the terms of the project. In the process, the HALO Trust director met with many church leaders, including Pope Francis.
A team of Israeli, Palestinian and Georgian experts, using hand-held mine detectors and armored mechanical diggers, began clearing the church compounds and the surrounding desert shrubland shortly before the Christian Holy Week that precedes Easter.
Israel's Defense Ministry and the Israeli National Mine Action Authority have contributed at least half the funding for the project, a ministry spokeswoman said.
HALO described the project as a rare example of multi-faith collaboration in the Middle East, involving Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The river area was once a war zone between Israel and Jordan. The two neighbors made peace in 1994, but it took many years before some mine clearing began.
Both claim that the site where John the Baptist and Jesus met is on their side of the biblical river. The Gospel of John refers to "Bethany beyond the Jordan" without further details.
A small path was cleared for Pope John Paul II's visit in 2000 and pilgrims for years had to coordinate their visits with the Israeli military, due to security and land mine concerns.
In 2002, Jordan opened its site, showing remains of ancient churches and writings of pilgrims down the centuries to bolster its claim. UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site in 2015.
Israel opened the baptism area on the western bank of the river in 2011, after it cleared a narrow road leading to the Jordan River. It has a modern visitor center and stairs for pilgrims to descend into the muddy water. Today, buses ferry hundreds of thousands of visitors along that road each year, with the surrounding area remaining off limits.
Mine agencies from both sides are brought in to supervise HALO's work, the group said. Jordan provides access to the baptism site from the other side of the river and Cowan also met with Jordan's King Abdullah to discuss the matter.
"We pray and hope that the clearance of land mines around the baptism site will contribute to peace and reconciliation in our region, which is very much needed at this time," Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox patriarch of the Holy Land, said in a statement. "We are glad that after many years, pilgrims from around the world will be able to fully experience and venerate this holy site."
