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Israel Clears Landmines from Seven Monasteries by Jesus' Baptismal Site
(Jerusalem Post) Tovah Lazaroff - During the War of Attrition in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, when there were cross-border raids between Israel and Jordan, Israel shut down seven abandoned monasteries along the road that leads to Jesus' baptismal site on the Israeli side of the Jordan River, known as Qasr al-Yahud. It declared the area a military zone and planted thousands of land mines there to stop infiltrations from terrorists and the Jordanian Army. Now, the Israel National Mines Action Authority, together with the IDF and the international NGO HALO Trust, are in the midst of deactivating 5,000 land mines opposite the Jordanian border. On Sunday, the IDF and the INMAA gave journalists a rare glimpse of the Franciscan chapel and the Ethiopian monastery that are part of the Land of the Monasteries project. Given the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan and the fact that land mines are no longer part of Israel's defensive strategy, there is no need for such explosives along the Jordanian border.