{"id":96672,"date":"2022-07-19T17:05:45","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T15:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=96672"},"modified":"2022-07-10T15:36:17","modified_gmt":"2022-07-10T13:36:17","slug":"19-05-76","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=96672","title":{"rendered":"Farmer accidentally burns swathe of Israel’s ancient Tel Gezer Park"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Farmer accidentally burns swathe of Israel’s ancient Tel Gezer Park<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

JUDITH SUDILOVSKY<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\u2018One farmer caused the burning of an entire national park,\u2019 fire spread quickly because of hot, dry and windy weather conditions.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

.Hundreds of dunams of the Tel Gezer National Park were destroyed by a fire started by a pruning fire at a neighboring moshav.<\/em><\/span>
\n(photo credit: Roee Shtrauss, Sharon regional director of the INPA)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Flames that spread from a pruning fire in the agricultural areas of Moshav Beit Uziel burned large areas of the\u00a0Tel Gezer National Park<\/a>\u00a0on Monday.<\/span><\/p>\n

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According to initial assessments on Tuesday morning, no irreversible damage was done to the antiquities at the site, said Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) Sharon Regional Director Roee Shtrauss.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThis morning we came with our restoration and conservation team to assess the damage and though we see that there has been damage done, until now we have not seen any irreversible damage,\u201d Shtrauss said. \u201cWe will need to restore and clean the antiquities which have been burnt, but we need to do a more thorough study of the situation in order to better determine what needs to be done.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cWe will need to restore and clean the antiquities which have been burnt, but we need to do a more thorough study of the situation in order to better determine what needs to be done.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Roee Shtrauss<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He said\u00a020 firefighters, including four planes and two helicopters, battled and extinguished the flames. Some 1,100 scouts camping in the nearby area were also evacuated according to Ynet. No injuries were reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Shtrauss said no damage was done to the ancient Canaanite water work system of Tel Gezer \u2013 the largest Canaanite water system ever discovered \u2013 which was only opened to the public in November 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hundreds of dunams of the Tel Gezer National Park were destroyed by a fire started by a pruning fire at a neighboring moshav. (credit: Israel Fire Department)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The history of Gezer<\/h3>\n

Gezer was a prominent fortified Canaanite city-state in the Middle Bronze Age. The archaeological tel covers an area of about 13 hectares (32 acres), and includes 26 settlement layers dating from the Chalcolithic period to the Early Roman period, from 3500 BCE to 100 BCE.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The ancient city was strategically located to control the junction of the Roman coastal Via Maris, or \u201cSea Road,\u201d with the road to Jerusalem, making it one of the most important biblical mounds in the Land of Israel. Antiquities at the site include a Canaanite gate flanked by a high guard tower, a possible Canaanite cultic center with an impressive row of monoliths surrounding a basin, 13 boundary stones, the remains of a temple, and an eastern gate known as Solomon\u2019s Gate.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The king of Gezer is mentioned in the Bible in Joshua 10:33 in the story of the Israelite conquest of Canaan. Gezer is also referenced in 1 Kings 9:15-17 as the city sacked by the Egyptian pharaoh who then gave the destroyed city to King Solomon as a dowry for his daughter whom Solomon married. According to the Bible, Solomon then rebuilt Gezer and made it into one of his great fortified cities along with Jerusalem, Megiddo and Hazor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday\u2019s fire spread quickly because of the windy, hot and dry conditions, noted Shtrauss.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cWe will make a damage report, and with our experts who are assessing the situation, we will work on restoring the site and do everything possible so that it will be ready to reopen by next spring,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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INPA Director-General Raya Soraki<\/a>\u00a0said in a statement that a government decision to rehabilitate Tel Gezer will be needed to allow the conservation and restoration work to be carried out and improve public access to the site before spring.<\/span><\/p>\n

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She noted that fire emphasized the need for a better accessibility to the site, as fire and rescue forces had difficulties reaching the area.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m sorry the summer opened with a fire, in this case [due to] pruning and debris. A farmer caused the burning of an entire national park,\u201d she said. \u201cIn light of the climate crisis, we are expecting a rise in temperature that could cause fires, so I call on the traveling public to take responsibility for avoiding lighting fires in open areas and nature reserves except in places approved for this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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In the winter and spring season, which are the peak periods, about 50,000 people visit the Tel Gezer National Park, according to the INPA.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Farmer accidentally burns swathe of Israel’s ancient Tel Gezer Park JUDITH SUDILOVSKY \u2018One farmer caused the burning of an entire national park,\u2019 fire spread quickly because of hot, dry and windy weather conditions. .Hundreds of dunams of the Tel Gezer National Park were destroyed by a fire started by a pruning fire at a neighboring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96672"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96672"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96698,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96672\/revisions\/96698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}