Weekly Picture from Israel 180411

Pictures from Israel

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Rosh Hanikra is host to one of the more fascinating geological formations, the Blue-water cave grottoes at the base of a white chalky cliff-face which opens up into these spectacular grottoes. They are situated at the top end of Israel, on the shores of the Mediterranean and north-west of the Galilee region and just meters away from Israel’s border with Lebanon. Soldiers are permanently stationed here to protect Israeli citizens and tourists alike. The residents of Rosh Hanikra kibbutz manage this tourist site, which in turn provides funding for its various agricultural and other interest.

Strategically, Rosh Hanikra could one day be part of a proposed Cairo-Haifa-Beirut rail link. The sea travels some 200 metres into the grotto. In 1968, a 400-metre long tunnel was dug between the grottoes which gives it more tourist appeal, especially when visitors can easily get to the grottoes by cable car, which descends at a 60-degree gradient from the top of the cliff down to the tunnels. This cable car is advertised as the steepest in the world.

Ancient history records Rosh Hanikra as being one of the important trade routes for merchant caravans and often used by armies travelling to and from Lebanon and Syria in the north and Israel, Egypt and Africa in the south. In the Book of Joshua in the Bible, a place called Misraphot Mayim, located south of Rosh HaNikra is mentioned because of it was at the northern border of the Tribe of Asher, part of the Kingdom of Israel. Also historian Josephus Flavius writes that Rosh Hanikra is the northern border of the city of Acre, (from The Jewish War 2, 10, 2). And, in the Jewish book I Maccabees, verse 11:59, it mentions the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom and Shimon HaHashmonai being responsible for this region, in the middle of the 2nd century B.C.E.
Alexander of Macedonea (323 B.C.E.) is purported to have cut a tunnel at Rosh Hanikra so his army could pass through. General used of this roadway include armies of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies during their wars in the third and second century B.C.E. and the Crusaders in 1099 C.E. Then, during World War 1, the British Army made the road safe for motor vehicles.

+Israel-©-MEA-20180411-(C553)-Blue-water-cave-grottoes-at-Rosh-Hanikra

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Weekly Picture from Israel 180404

Pictures from Israel

Click to enlarge

+Israel © MEA-20180404 (C592) History of Israel -IDF Tanks

History of Israel -IDF Tanks

Remnants of past military battles, abandoned tanks of all shapes and sizes are scattered across the landscapes of many different countries throughout the world, and Israel is no exception. Here we see tourists flocking around this outdated Sherman, an example of an Egyptian tank captured by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) during the 1967 Six-Day War, and now on display at the Latrun Military Museum in Jerusalem.

Israel has had a long history of tank warfare, where they began using British and then American tanks. But even by the early 1960s, they knew they would have to develop and build their own unique style of tank. The Yom Kippur War in 1973 triggered a chain of military decisions, from which IDF Major General Israel Tal initiated a program for Israel to build its own ‘mystery’ tank, called the Merkava -meaning chariot, which entered service in 1979. It was a modest beginning, but this tank was more suitable to meet Israel’s specific needs, with extra protection flanking the outside making it more resistant to damage, and a rear hatch fitted for emergency evacuation by the tank crews.

Over the past three decades, and using their own engineering and technological skills, the IDF have continued to produce even more advanced Merkava tanks, which are commended for their innovative design, mobility and weaponry functions. The Merkava-2 model was the most heavily armed tank in the world. The structural design of the Merkava chassis was also adapted to be used in the manufacture an armoured ambulance (called the ‘Tankbulance’), and the Infantry Fighting Vehicle (called the Namer), amongst other military uses. The latest Merkava tanks are even more sophisticated and very necessary in defending the borders of the sovereign State of Israel and its people.

Copyright exists in all the material on this website and is owned by Messianic Education Australia Ltd. unless otherwise explicitly stated. This copyright extends to the images, logos, layout and presentation styles as well as the text material.