AP Exclusive: Inside Israel's push to clear sea munitions, part of global push to protect waters

RISHON LEZION, Israel (AP) — Marking the coordinates on a handheld GPS, an Israeli diver threw an anchor into the water as another quickly chucked an orange buoy beside it. Cramped on the boat's bow, the first team assembled their gear, put on wet suits and tested oxygen tanks before jumping in.

But after hours of combing the Mediterranean seabed in search of yellow-painted mock mortar shells, the divers surfaced empty-handed.

It was the team's fifth diving trip in the yearslong experiment to help prepare Israel to clear part of the sea from unexploded grenades and other munitions in order to return beach area to residents. But on this day in June, the divers couldn't find the dummy mortar and artillery shells they'd planted months prior, foreshadowing the challenges that lie ahead.

“It’s really hard to find things in the sea,” said Roy Jaijel, a researcher in the marine geology and geophysics department at Israel’s National Institute of Oceanography, as he emerged from a dive.

Jaijel co-leads a project aimed at returning some 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) of shoreline to people living in Israel's central city of Rishon LeZion, an area that's been used as a firing range for decades. The initiative, the first of its kind in Israel, coincides with a global push to better protect the world's waters as demand increases for the use of seas and oceans for shipping, energy and recreation.

Experts say the clearance of underwater munitions has received more attention in recent years in part because of the boom in artificial intelligence, which requires millions of kilometers of underwater fiber-optic cables to allow for global connectivity.

Munitions can end up dumped into waters after wars, fall into seas during conflict or, in the case of Rishon LeZion, accumulate from firing practice. Erosion from seawater can lead toxic and explosive chemicals, along with heavy metals, to seep from the munitions, causing environmental contamination. There's also the risk of objects exploding if people step on them or children play with them, thinking they're toys.

Two years ago, Europe launched a project to better detect and clear non-military unexploded ordnance, such as from industrial or commercial sites. In a separate initiative in 2024, Germany piloted a program to recover and dispose of military waste from the North and Baltic Seas, where some 1.6 million tonnes of unexploded munitions from two world wars lie, according to the German government.

Still, there's been less focus on clearing waters in the Middle East, such as the Mediterranean, which historically hasn't been the site of large dumps compared with Europe.

Leaders of the Israeli project say it's one of the first to focus on clearing smaller munitions in complicated underwater terrain, which is why many countries have avoided it.

“It's like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Israel Faintuch, head of the Maritime Division at Israel's Ministry of Defense National Mine Action Authority as he checked his oxygen tank and suited up to go underwater.

The government says nearly half the country's 194-kilometer (120-mile) coastline is off limits to civilians, used for commercial ports, power plants, desalination facilities, military bases and firing zones.

Since the country's founding nearly 80 years ago, 7 kilometers (4.3 miles), nearly the entire length of Rishon LeZion's shoreline, has been used as a firing range, launching grenades as well as small and large mortars, leaving hundreds of thousands of people crammed into a narrow strip of beach.

Launched last year, the joint research project funded by Rishon LeZion's municipality is being led by Israel’s National Mine Action Authority and researchers from the National Institute of Oceanography. It aims to localize the most impacted areas, mapping the pattern of munitions to determine how far offshore and how deep to go before the clearance team steps in.

In order to gather data, divers place various sizes of fake munitions — some equipped with motion sensors — at depths of 5, 10 and 15 meters (16, 33 and 59 feet) and up to 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) offshore. After several months, they retrieve the munitions, analyze the data and plant new ones.

In June, Associated Press journalists accompanied the team underwater as they placed new munitions for the next round of tests and attempted to find ones they'd left in January. Divers descended using a string, or measuring tape, to navigate the seabed. Tapping each other under the water, they'd point in different directions to search, rubbing their hands over the seafloor.

“You have limited air supply when you go with the divers and you have limited time in the water," said Dafna Eliahu, a graduate student working on the project. "So with actual live munition I expect it to be very difficult, very hard to locate and to actually be able to find them,” she said.

While the information, including from the sensors, is still being processed, preliminary findings show that the munitions moved less than expected, which means there might be less area that needs clearing, she said.

Israel's Defense Ministry wants to have enough data to start clearing by the end of next year and expand the shoreline by an initial 150 meters (492 feet) within a few months. Completing the project will take years and cost tens of millions of dollars. It's already been delayed due to Israel's multiple wars with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran as divers can't work when missiles are falling and could land in the sea.

During the current war that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran as well as the 12-day war last June between Israel and Iran, the army said missiles aimed at larger cities like Rishon LeZion fell into the sea but wouldn’t specify how many.

Israel says no one has been injured or killed by unexploded sea ordnance, but there have been about a dozen sightings of devices in the last 20 years where the police and army were called. Most have been found on or near shore.

While the goal of the project is to expand parts of the shoreline, Israel also hopes its findings will yield new insights on clearing munitions from this part of the world, where there are threats but overall less is known.

According to the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, more than half of global incidents related to unexploded ordnance, such as sightings or drifting mines, were recorded in the Middle East between 2014 and 2023, with most occurring in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, largely a result of Yemen's civil war.

Pedro Basto, research and innovation program manager with the group, said it is important to keep interest high in removing underwater explosives given the increasing dependence on the seas.

“Both renewable energies based on the sea (wind turbines and harnessing water currents) and the global connectivity that most of the world relies on every minute of every day, depend massively on underwater cable laying,” he said.

As Israel's project advances, residents in Rishon LeZion say they're looking forward to being able to use more land.

Moria Malka, head spokesperson for the city's municipality, said the clearance will triple the area’s coastline and much of it will become a nature reserve as well as a residential area near the sea. For beachgoers like Mark Kostman, that is great news.

“Holidays and Saturdays, all of this place is completely crowded and too dense to even have fun,” said Kostman as he played volleyball with his children next to the firing zone. “Having it as public space for leisure and sport ... it's wonderful."

Associated Press reporter Natalie Melzer contributed from Nahariya, Israel.

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A family enjoys part of the Mediterranean Sea that is near a military firing range that is slated to be cleared in Rishon LeZion on Tuesday, June 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A military firing range that had been used for decades and is slated to be cleared and opened for public use, is visible through a boat in the Mediterranean Sea in off the coast of Rishon Lezion, Israel, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Divers load gear and mock munitions to be placed on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Rishon LeZion, Israel, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Divers place mock munitions on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Rishon LeZion, Israel, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Mock munitions, to be placed by divers on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea, are displayed off the coast of Rishon LeZion, Israel, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Divers descend to place mock munitions on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Rishon LeZion, Israel, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Divers place mock munitions on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Rishon LeZion, Israel, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Seagulls fly past a barrier of a military firing range that had been used for decades and is slated to be cleared and opened for public use, in the Mediterranean Sea in Rishon LeZion, Israel, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A family enjoys the Mediterranean Sea in Rishon LeZion, Tuesday, June 23, 2026. The beach is located near a military firing range that had been used for decades and is slated to be cleared and opened for public use. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Divers descend to place mock munitions on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Rishon LeZion, Israel, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Divers place mock munitions on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Rishon LeZion, Israel, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

LONDON (AP) — After almost 1,000 years, the Bayeux Tapestry is back on English soil.

In scenes like a heist movie in reverse, the priceless Medieval artwork was spirited into the British Museum on Friday in the dead of night, after a high-tech, tight-security operation where any slip-up could have spelled disaster.

On loan from its home in France, the tapestry will go on display at the London museum from Sept. 10 until July 2027. It's a public homecoming for a vivid visual record of the 1066 Norman invasion, the last successful conquest of England.

The tapestry's arrival in London has been widely anticipated, but due to security concerns all details of when and how it would arrive have been kept under wraps.

“It feels extraordinary that after so much work and planning and care and thought that it’s actually happening,” British Museum Director Nicholas Cullinan said as he awaited the arrival after a secrecy-shrouded journey.

“It’s the first time in 1,000 years that such an important piece of British — French too — history is going to be on these shores,” he said. “It’s incredibly exciting.”

The 70-meter (230-foot) tapestry was folded accordion-style in a climate-controlled case that was placed inside a shock-absorbing cradle. That went into a truck that crossed from France on a vehicle shuttle train through the Channel Tunnel.

After an 11-hour, 350-mile (560-kilometer) trip, escorted by police, the truck backed slowly into a loading bay at the museum, where workers gingerly eased the container, the size of a small car, to the ground. Museum staff and British and French diplomats who had been watching in hushed silence broke into applause.

The priceless cargo will spend several days acclimatizing before it is carefully unpacked and unfolded for an exhibition that the museum expects to be one of the most popular in its history. Some 100,000 tickets were sold in their first day on sale this month.

“It was like trying to get tickets to Glastonbury,” Cullinan said. “I don’t take for granted that people care that much about a 1,000-year-old embroidery. I think that’s an amazing thing.”

Stitched in wool thread on linen fabric, the artwork depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy defeated King Harald’s Anglo-Saxon army. The invasion ended Saxon rule and made William the Conqueror the first Norman king of England.

Historians believe the tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William’s half brother, and was probably sewn by women in England — possibly nuns — before being taken across the Channel. It has spent most of the last millennium in the town of Bayeux in northwest France, apart from two short periods at the Louvre in Paris.

The tapestry symbolizes the sometimes fractious, intertwined histories of France and Britain, and securing the loan was a high-stakes diplomatic mission. It was announced during a state visit to the U.K. by French President Emmanuel Macron in July 2025. The loan coincides with renovations at the museum in Bayeux that houses it.

In return, the British Museum will loan treasures from the Sutton Hoo hoard — artifacts from a 7th century Anglo Saxon ship burial — and other items to museums in Normandy.

Retired British diplomat Peter Ricketts, who helped secure the deal as the U.K.’s special envoy for the tapestry, said “it’s an extraordinary mark of friendship and confidence in the U.K. to entrust this object to us for a year.”

“Macron, when he offered us the tapestry, I think he understood that it would have far more impact in the U.K. than it does in France, because it’s more fundamental to our national story,” he said. Everybody (in Britain) knows 1066.”

It features 627 people and 737 animals and tells its story in 58 scenes brimming with vivid and sometimes gory detail. There are scenes of hand-to-hand combat, mutilated bodies and the unlucky Harold, felled by an arrow through his eye.

“It has an emotional richness that is really difficult to get from written sources,” said Millie Horton-Insch, project curator for the British Museum exhibition. “It just brings people closer to this history than any other object can. It’s not the same as reading a text. You are looking at something that was handled by the people who lived through it and felt compelled to record these events in this way. “

She said the document’s survival for 10 centuries despite myriad dangers — “moths, mice, mold damp, fire” — is miraculous, and may be partly due to its humble materials.

“It’s not really made of any blingy fabric,” she said. “It’s not gold, it’s not silver. There wasn’t the same temptation to cut it up and make it into vestments or repurpose it for anything.”

Some French cultural figures opposed the loan, arguing that moving the tapestry was too risky. Cullinan said the expert teams went to great lengths to ensure its safety, including making two trial runs of the journey to show it would not cause the fragile item too much stress.

“Such care has gone into it. I can’t think of a level of care for any other museum loan,” he said.

He said he understands why there are concerns.

“The tapestry arouses great interest and passion,” he said. “Which is a wonderful thing."

A British Museum worker unloads objects out of a truck at the British Museum in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kwiyeon Ha)

British Museum Director Nicholas Cullinan standing in front of a truck that carried the Bayeux Tapestry from France at the British Museum in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kwiyeon Ha)

Workers unload a box that contains the Bayeux Tapestry out of a truck at the British Museum in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kwiyeon Ha)

Workers unload a box that contains the Bayeux Tapestry out of a truck at the British Museum in London, Friday, July 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Kwiyeon Ha)