Headline News

Why Is Israel, One of the World’s Driest Countries, Now Overflowing With Drinking Water?

Israel now gets 55 percent of its domestic water from desalination, and that has helped to turn one of the world’s driest countries into the unlikeliest of water giants.

Published

9 years ago

August 23, 2016

Geoffrey Grider

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In 2008, Israel teetered on the edge of a water shortage catastrophe, today Israel has more water than it needs

“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God.” Isaiah 35:1,2 (KJV)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Prophetically, the verses from Isaiah 35 will be fulfilled during the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ from Jerusalem on the Throne of David. But even now, we continue to see God’s blessing on Israel above that of all the other nations around them. Tiny, little Israel holds an amazing amount of patents for technology, farming, and water purification.

Article written by Rowan Jacobsen

Ten miles south of Tel Aviv, I stand on a catwalk over two concrete reservoirs the size of football fields and watch water pour into them from a massive pipe emerging from the sand. The pipe is so large I could walk through it standing upright, were it not full of Mediterranean seawater pumped from an intake a mile offshore.

“Now, that’s a pump!” Edo Bar-Zeev shouts to me over the din of the motors, grinning with undisguised awe at the scene before us. The reservoirs beneath us contain several feet of sand through which the seawater filters before making its way to a vast metal hangar, where it is transformed into enough drinking water to supply 1.5 million people.

We are standing above the new Sorek desalination plant, the largest reverse-osmosis desal facility in the world, and we are staring at Israel’s salvation. Just a few years ago, in the depths of its worst drought in at least 900 years, Israel was running out of water. Now it has a surplus. That remarkable turnaround was accomplished through national campaigns to conserve and reuse Israel’s meager water resources, but the biggest impact came from a new wave of desalination plants.

Israel now gets 55 percent of its domestic water from desalination, and that has helped to turn one of the world’s driest countries into the unlikeliest of water giants.

Bar-Zeev, who recently joined Israel’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research after completing his postdoc work at Yale University, is an expert on biofouling, which has always been an Achilles’ heel of desalination and one of the reasons it has been considered a last resort. Desal works by pushing saltwater into membranes containing microscopic pores. The water gets through, while the larger salt molecules are left behind. But microorganisms in seawater quickly colonize the membranes and block the pores, and controlling them requires periodic costly and chemical-intensive cleaning. But Bar-Zeev and colleagues developed a chemical-free system using porous lava stone to capture the microorganisms before they reach the membranes. It’s just one of many breakthroughs in membrane technology that have made desalination much more efficient. Israel now gets 55 percent of its domestic water from desalination, and that has helped to turn one of the world’s driest countries into the unlikeliest of water giants.

Driven by necessity, Israel is learning to squeeze more out of a drop of water than any country on Earth, and much of that learning is happening at the Zuckerberg Institute, where researchers have pioneered new techniques in drip irrigation, water treatment and desalination. They have developed resilient well systems for African villages and biological digesters than can halve the water usage of most homes.

IDE’s Ashkelon Plant

The institute’s original mission was to improve life in Israel’s bone-dry Negev Desert, but the lessons look increasingly applicable to the entire Fertile Crescent. “The Middle East is drying up,” says Osnat Gillor, a professor at the Zuckerberg Institute who studies the use of recycled wastewater on crops. “The only country that isn’t suffering acute water stress is Israel.”

That water stress has been a major factor in the turmoil tearing apart the Middle East, but Bar-Zeev believes that Israel’s solutions can help its parched neighbors, too — and in the process, bring together old enemies in common cause.

Bar-Zeev acknowledges that water will likely be a source of conflict in the Middle East in the future. “But I believe water can be a bridge, through joint ventures,” he says. “And one of those ventures is desalination.”

Driven to desperation

In 2008, Israel teetered on the edge of catastrophe. A decade-long drought had scorched the Fertile Crescent, and Israel’s largest source of freshwater, the Sea of Galilee, had dropped to within inches of the “black line” at which irreversible salt infiltration would flood the lake and ruin it forever. Water restrictions were imposed, and many farmers lost a year’s crops.

Their counterparts in Syria fared much worse. As the drought intensified and the water table plunged, Syria’s farmers chased it, drilling wells 100, 200, then 500 meters (300, 700, then 1,600 feet) down in a literal race to the bottom. Eventually, the wells ran dry and Syria’s farmland collapsed in an epic dust storm. More than a million farmers joined massive shantytowns on the outskirts of Aleppo, Homs, Damascus and other cities in a futile attempt to find work and purpose.

And that, according to the authors of “Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent and Implications of the Recent Syrian Drought,” a 2015 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was the tinder that burned Syria to the ground. “The rapidly growing urban peripheries of Syria,” they wrote, “marked by illegal settlements, overcrowding, poor infrastructure, unemployment, and crime, were neglected by the Assad government and became the heart of the developing unrest.”

Similar stories are playing out across the Middle East, where drought and agricultural collapse have produced a lost generation with no prospects and simmering resentments. Iran, Iraq and Jordan all face water catastrophes. Water is driving the entire region to desperate acts.

More water than needs

Except Israel. Amazingly, Israel has more water than it needs. The turnaround started in 2007, when low-flow toilets and showerheads were installed nationwide and the national water authority built innovative water treatment systems that recapture 86 percent of the water that goes down the drain and use it for irrigation — vastly more than the second-most-efficient country in the world, Spain, which recycles 19 percent.

But even with those measures, Israel still needed about 1.9 billion cubic meters (2.5 billion cubic yards) of freshwater per year and was getting just 1.4 billion cubic meters (1.8 billion cubic yards) from natural sources. That 500-million-cubic-meter (650-million-cubic-yard) shortfall was why the Sea of Galilee was draining like an unplugged tub and why the country was about to lose its farms.

The country faces a previously unfathomable question: What to do with its extra water?

Enter desalination. The Ashkelon plant, in 2005, provided 127 million cubic meters (166 million cubic yards) of water. Hadera, in 2009, put out another 140 million cubic meters (183 million cubic yards). And now Sorek, 150 million cubic meters (196 million cubic yards). All told, desal plants can provide some 600 million cubic meters (785 million cubic yards) of water a year, and more are on the way.

The Sea of Galilee is fuller. Israel’s farms are thriving. And the country faces a previously unfathomable question: What to do with its extra water?

Water diplomacy

Inside Sorek, 50,000 membranes enclosed in vertical white cylinders, each 4 feet high and 16 inches wide, are whirring like jet engines. The whole thing feels like a throbbing spaceship about to blast off. The cylinders contain sheets of plastic membranes wrapped around a central pipe, and the membranes are stippled with pores less than a hundredth the diameter of a human hair. Water shoots into the cylinders at a pressure of 70 atmospheres and is pushed through the membranes, while the remaining brine is returned to the sea.

Desalination used to be an expensive energy hog, but the kind of advanced technologies being employed at Sorek have been a game changer. Water produced by desalination costs just a third of what it did in the 1990s. Sorek can produce a thousand liters of drinking water for 58 cents. Israeli households pay about US$30 a month for their water — similar to households in most US cities, and far less than Las Vegas (US$47) or Los Angeles (US$58).

The International Desalination Association claims that 300 million people get water from desalination, and that number is quickly rising. IDE, the Israeli company that built Ashkelon, Hadera and Sorek, recently finished the Carlsbad desalination plant in Southern California, a close cousin of its Israel plants, and it has many more in the works. Worldwide, the equivalent of six additional Sorek plants are coming online every year. The desalination era is here.

What excites Bar-Zeev the most is the opportunity for water diplomacy. Israel supplies the West Bank with water, as required by the 1995 Oslo II Accords, but the Palestinians still receive far less than they need. Water has been entangled with other negotiations in the ill-fated peace process, but now that more is at hand, many observers see the opportunity to depoliticize it. Bar-Zeev has ambitious plans for a Water Knows No Boundaries conference in 2018, which will bring together water scientists from Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza for a meeting of the minds.

Even more ambitious is the US$900 million Red Sea–Dead Sea Canal, a joint venture between Israel and Jordan to build a large desalination plant on the Red Sea, where they share a border, and divide the water among Israelis, Jordanians and the Palestinians. The brine discharge from the plant will be piped 100 miles north through Jordan to replenish the Dead Sea, which has been dropping a meter per year since the two countries began diverting the only river that feeds it in the 1960s. By 2020, these old foes will be drinking from the same tap.

On the far end of the Sorek plant, Bar-Zeev and I get to share a tap as well. Branching off from the main line where the Sorek water enters the Israeli grid is a simple spigot, a paper cup dispenser beside it. I open the tap and drink cup after cup of what was the Mediterranean Sea 40 minutes ago. It tastes cold, clear and miraculous.

The contrasts couldn’t be starker. A few miles from here, water disappeared and civilization crumbled. Here, a galvanized civilization created water from nothingness. As Bar-Zeev and I drink deep, and the climate sizzles, I wonder which of these stories will be the exception, and which the rule. source

European Union

NATO Jet Fighters Scramble In Poland While Russia Unleashes A Hellish Fury Upon Ukraine As WWIII Begins Knocking Loudly On The End Times Door

Published

8 hours ago

December 6, 2025

Geoffrey Grider

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NATO fighter jets were scrambled and air defense systems put on alert in Poland in response to Russia’s latest overnight drone and missile strikes in Ukraine

NATO fighter jets roared into the midnight sky over Poland last night as Russia unleashed hundreds of drones and missiles into Ukraine, this is more than just another headline in the endless drumbeat of war. The birth pangs are becoming impossible to ignore. What we are watching unfold in Eastern Europe is yet another reminder that the global stage is being prepared for the time of Jacob’s trouble, the rise of Antichrist, and the reshaping of world powers exactly as foretold in the King James Bible.

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24:6-8 (KJB)

The prophet Daniel saw a final form of world government, a revived Roman system — strong in places, weak in others, but unified under one global ruler (Daniel 2:41–43). What is NATO if not the lingering iron of the old Roman Empire stretching across Europe? And soon a man will arise who will promise peace, stability, and safety — and the world will hand him everything. All of this points in one unmistakable direction: The Age of Grace is closing, and the time of Jacob’s trouble is approaching. The world cannot sustain this level of geopolitical tension without breaking. The Bible says it will break — spectacularly, after the Rapture when God turns His focus back to Israel and pours judgment on a Christ-rejecting world. If you’re saved, this should stir your soul and remind you that the ‘voice like a trumpet’ is close to sounding. If you’re lost, the window of mercy is still open — but not for long.

NATO fighters scrambled in Poland as Russia bombards Ukraine

FROM ABC NEWS: “Fighter jets have been scrambled and ground-based air defense systems as well as radar reconnaissance systems have reached a state of readiness,” the command said in a post to X. “These actions are of a preventive nature and are aimed at securing the airspace and its protection, especially in areas adjacent to the threatened regions,” it added. The alert lasted for just under four hours, after which the command said the fighters and air defense systems had “returned to standard operational activities.” No violations of Polish airspace were observed, a follow-up post to X said.

The Spanish and Czech air forces were involved in the response, the command said, as were German and Dutch air defense systems. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 653 drones and 51 missiles — 17 of them ballistic missiles — into the country overnight. The air force said 585 drones and 30 missiles were shot down or suppressed.

Drone and missile impacts were reported across 29 locations, the air force said.

The attack — which consisted of 704 air attack weapons — was Russia’s largest overnight bombardment since it launched 705 munitions on the night of Oct. 29, according to Ukrainian air force data analyzed by ABC News. The largest attack of the war to date took place on the night of Sept. 6 and involved 823 air attack vehicles. The latest overnight attack is only the fourth of Russia’s full-scale invasion to date in which the number of air attack vehicles used surpassed 700.

NATO forced to scramble fighter jets as drones from Russian attack on Ukraine cross the border into Poland. #WWIII pic.twitter.com/T8q0g7XZ4b

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) December 6, 2025

Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Iho Klymenko said in a post to Telegram that 10 regions of the country came under attack, with direct hits to residential buildings, railways and energy infrastructure. More than two dozen houses in the Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr and Lviv regions were damaged, according to Klymenko. At least three people were injured in the Kyiv region, another three people were injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region and two people were injured in the Lviv region, Klymenko said.

In the Black Sea port city of Odesa, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said an energy facility was damaged, resulting in disruptions to the supply of power and heating. Some 9,500 customers were without heating and 34,000 without water as of 9:30 a.m. local time. There was also damage to energy infrastructure in the Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to authorities there.

The International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog — said in a post to X that Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant also temporarily lost all off-site power during the Russian strikes.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi “reiterates call for military restraint to avoid a nuclear accident,” the post said. Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said she had “convened an emergency coordination meeting” with the ministers of internal affairs and energy as well as the leadership of the state-run energy companies and all services responsible for recovery operations. READ MORE

Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

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When you contribute to this fundraising effort, you are helping us to do what the Lord called us to do. The money you send in goes primarily to the overall daily operations of this site. When people ask for Bibles, we send them out at no charge. When people write in and say how much they would like gospel tracts but cannot afford them, we send them a box at no cost to them for either the tracts or the shipping, no matter where they are in the world. We have a Gospel Billboard program. We are now broadcasting Bible studies, Podcasts and a Sunday Service 5 times a week, thanks to your generous donations. All this is possible because YOU pray for us, YOU support us, and YOU give so we can continue growing.

But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now. The Lord has given us an open door with a tremendous ‘course’ for us to fulfill that will create an excellent experience at the Judgement Seat of Christ. Please pray for our efforts, and if the Lord leads you to donate, be as generous as possible. The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Free Bible Program

The Willacy County Regional Detention Facility In Texas Has Just Reached Out For Pocket New Testaments In Spanish For The 400 Inmates In Their Charge

Published

1 day ago

December 5, 2025

Geoffrey Grider

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A very specific request for pocket Bibles in Spanish comes from Chaplain Martinez at the Willacy County Regional Detention Facility In Texas

Last summer, Chaplain Eric from the Willacy County Regional Detention Facility In Texas reached out to us in need of Bibles in English and in Spanish, and we were more than happy to meet that request for him. Now, Chap has again reached out with a more specific need, Bibles in Spanish but they have to be small, pocket size, or the inmates will not be allowed to take their Bible with them when they are moved out of Willacy. Jesus came to set the captives free, that’s our mission.

“And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.” Isaiah 24:22 (KJB)

As Americans, we all have an opinion on immigration, legal and illegal, with people coming across our southern border with Mexico, I get that. But as Christians there can be no debate, all those immigrants are precious souls before the Lord in need of salvation. So when we have an opportunity to send Bibles directly into detention centers housing immigrants, what a blessing that is! Make no mistake, there are plenty of American citizens in that jail as well, and we must reach them, too.

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

When we send Bibles to jails and prisons, we’re not just ‘sending a book’, we are sending the preserved words of God, and flooding their cells with a Light above that of a thousand suns. We are Hope dealers to people society has cast off and rejected, precious souls who desperately need this live-changing gift of a Bible. Come help us to keep doing this vital end times work, we need you!

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

If God has prospered you, please take a moment to click on the donate button to help us in this monumental task of providing King James Bibles, New Testaments, scripture portions, gospel tracts as well as Spanish Bibles to inmates in jails and prisons from Florida to Alaska, and every state in between. We need your prayers, we need your generous financial support, and we need you to stand with us in the closing days of the Church Age. Thank you so very much, TO THE FIGHT!!!

NOTE: If you need a 501 C3 Letter of Donation for tax purposes, please send your donation to:

NTEB Ministries
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Ste. 1272-129
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Now The End Begins is your front line defense against the rising tide of darkness in the last Days before the Rapture of the Church

HOW TO DONATE: Click here to view our WayGiver Funding page

“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJB)

“Thank you very much!” – Geoffrey, editor-in-chief, NTEB

Headline News

Trump To Announce Transition To Phase II Of Gaza ‘Board Of Peace’ Plan By Christmas Complete With A 10-Nation Confederacy Of International Rulers

Published

1 day ago

December 5, 2025

Geoffrey Grider

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US President Donald Trump is expected to announce Gaza’s ‘Board of Peace’ and the transition to the second phase of the US-backed Gaza deal by Christmas with a 10 nation confederacy

On the Podcast today, we brought you the breaking news that Trump has announce Phase II of his ‘Board of Peace’ plan to take control of Gaza with the unanimous approval of the UN Security Council. The really exciting part of all that was the Jerusalem Post announcing that Trump has created a 10 nation confederacy to help him bring peace to Gaza. Could things really get any more crazy? Is Donald Trump the Antichrist? Well, is he? That’s the memo.

“And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” Revelation 17:12,13 (KJB)

As I said repeatedly on the Podcast today, no, I do not think that Donald Trump is the biblical Antichrist – BUT – he is absolutely walking the same prophetic pattern that the Bible says the Antichrist will display in the time of Jacob’s trouble. Trump is obsessed with bringing peace to the world in general, and peace to the Middle East in particular. He is advocating for peace while at the same time planning and preparing for multiple wars. Wednesday he took control of the United States Institute of Peace and renamed it after himself! Now we learn that he will rule over Gaza with a 10-nation confederacy much like the one outlined in the book of Revelation. I’m sure this is all a crazy coincidence and soon we will all wake up and realize it was just a dream. Right? Buckle up, Christian, Flight #777 is warming up.

WITH 200 ORIGINAL PAINTINGS, RUCKMAN’S APOCALYPSE IS A GORGEOUSLY BOUND COFFEE TABLE BOOK ON THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST, CLICK TO ORDER!!

Trump to announce transition to Phase II of Gaza deal, ‘Board of Peace’ by Christmas

FROM THE JERUSALEM POST: President Trump plans to announce before Christmas that the Gaza peace process is moving into its second phase and to unveil the new governance structure for the enclave, according to two U.S. officials and a Western source directly involved in the process.

“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” 1 Thessalonians 5:3 (KJB) https://t.co/0FI93NwomD

— Now The End Begins (@NowTheEndBegins) December 5, 2025

“All of the different elements are pretty well advanced. It’s all moving ahead, and the aim is to announce it before people break for the holidays,” Axios reported, citing the Western source. The ‘Board of Peace’ will reportedly include approximately 10 Arab and Western leaders and will work alongside an international executive board composed of former British prime minister Tony Blair, Jared Kushner, US envoy Steve Witkoff, and other senior officials from contributing countries.

“The equation will be IDF out of Gaza but Hamas out of power,” Axios cited the Western source as saying. “The moment of truth will come in the next few weeks.”

Mediators are attempting to reach an agreement with Hamas regarding ending its governance of the Gaza Strip and its disarmament, according to Axios. The current discussion will reportedly have the terror group lay down its heavy arms first, and only afterward call for the group’s handover of its lighter weapons. READ MORE