By Martin Patience
BBC, in Ein Gedi, southern Israel
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Twenty years ago the Dead Sea water would have lapped at her feet, she says. But now, glittering in the distance, the sea lies almost one km away from the spa.
"We are watching the sea vanishing," says Ms Ayalon. "I feel like the sea is a dying man calling out for help and there's nothing I can do."
In the last 50 years, the Dead Sea, the world's saltiest body of water and lowest point on earth, has seen its surface area shrink by a third and its depth drop by 25 meters.
The water that once flowed into the Dead Sea from the River Jordan has been diverted by Syria, Jordan, Israel for agricultural and hydro-electrical projects.
Environmentalists are now warning that drastic action has to be taken to avert an ecological disaster as the Dead Sea drops by a metre every year.
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more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4968942.stm