An abandoned lifeguard cabin, a rusty pier and mangled umbrellas are all that is left of Ein Gedi, once Israel's flagship beach drawing international tourists to float in the world-famous waters of the Dead Sea.

Now, this lush desert oasis at the lowest point on Earth sits in ruins beside the shrinking sea, whose highly salty waters are rapidly retreating due to industrial use and climate change, which is accelerating their natural evaporation.

The beach has been closed to the public for five years, mainly due to the appearance of dangerous sinkholes, but also because the dramatic recession of the sea's level has made it tricky to reach its therapeutic waters, known for extraordinary buoyancy that lets bathers float effortlessly.

The increasingly exposed shoreline and the sinkholes, caused by a flow of freshwater dissolving layers of salt beneath the Earth's surface, are not new.

In fact, the Dead Sea, nestled where Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian territory meet, has famously been dying for years.

Now, with war raging in the Middle East, efforts to tackle this ever-worsening ecological disaster appear to have dissolved too.

"Regional cooperation is........

© Al Monitor