Tel Aviv Rooftop

+ This time last week a storm was raging with 100 km per hour whippings through Tel Aviv and causing havoc on rooftops (including The Rooftop which lost a few plant pots). Had I been braver I would have gone down to the seafront where the wind and high waves were ripping flagstones from the pavements. There was some serious damage at Tel Aviv port and  I was told by an eye witness that an unhinged chasakeh ( a cross between a punt and an oversized surfboard, used by lifeguards), was seen floating on Rehov Hayarkon!   A week later (yesterday) the sea was still high and the sand level seemed to have risen considerably. This photo of the Banana Beach cafe where you normally sit on the beach and not on the raised deck. The showers on the left were uprooted by the waves.  Above it all, migrating birds making their way south

These photos were taken in 2004 near the Carmel spa resort in the Carmel nature reserve near Haifa. I'm posting them not because they are particularly good but because they record vanished landscape. The fauna you see in these photos has been turned to ashes. For the past three days, as we watch in horror on TV,  fire-fighters from Israel and countries that have come to its aid, have been battling the massive forest fire on the Carmel, one of Israel's dwindling green lungs. Click here for some dramatic press photos. So far, the fire has claimed 41 lives and consumed 40,000 dunams of  forest. Some 17,000 people have been evacuated from their homes and have mostly been adopted by friends, family or volunteers. Meanwhile it's the third evening of the fire, it's getting dark and soon the planes dropping water on the flames, including a massive Ilyushin transport, sent from Russia, will have to stop work and the fire is still not under control. On...