Pilgrims return to Jesus’ baptismal site as Israel removes landmines
Saturday May 21, 2011 Christianity, Israel
Pilgrims are flowing back to the traditional site of Jesus’ baptism on the Jordan River as Israel removes 40-year-old land mines and improves the area, but barbed wire and armed soldiers testify to the area’s tense past. Located in a closed military area on the West Bank a few kilometers from Jericho, the site — Qasr el Yahud — has been revered since the fourth or fifth century as the place where John the Baptist recognized Jesus as the Messiah